


Conspiracy Theories

by sariane



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Character Death Fix, Comic Book Science, Coulson Lives, Deaf Clint Barton, Denial, Fix-It, Fury lies, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Jossed because it took me so long to post, M/M, NaNoWriMo 2012, Slow Build, Temporary Character Death, Tesseract
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-07 00:02:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 57,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1113099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sariane/pseuds/sariane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint knows he's supposed to move on from Coulson's death, to throw himself into his new life as an Avenger and let Coulson rest in peace. But, as time passes and more secrets come to light, all Clint knows is one thing, one thing that he's been willing to sacrifice everything for: Coulson is <i>alive<i>. </i></i></p><p>
  <i>
    <i>He just isn't sure if he's really Phil Coulson anymore.</i>
  </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for NaNoWriMo 2012 – and yes, it was a winner. :) Unfortunately, the nature of the challenge meant that the story I told was not the one I planned to write, and editing it has been kind of a fiasco. In the meantime, this has all been Jossed and some stuff I wrote has actually, canonically happened. It’s late for a fix-it, but I hope someone enjoys it, though! It was fun to write.
> 
> As I wrote this after The Avengers and before Iron Man 3, Thor 2, and Agents of SHIELD were released, this fic follows the canonical timeline through The Avengers and verges from canon into an AU from there.
> 
> WARNINGS:  
> This fic has more warnings than usually appear in my stories. It deals a lot with grief and mourning, and is based upon an unhealthy reaction to death. However, it is a fix-it, and I’m not hiding the fact that there’s a happy ending, and everyone makes it out alive. Please let me know if you have any concerns about the warnings, or if I’ve missed anything.
> 
> -Canon-typical violence.  
> -Discussion of character death.  
> -Harassment: Amora is in this fic, and the creepiness of her obsession with Thor is addressed.  
> -Kidnapping.  
> -Mind control and possession.  
> -Minor gore in the form of injuries.  
> -Not sure how to label this, but a character gives another character permission to kill them if they are compromised.  
> -Portrayal of anxiety disorders.  
> -Portrayal of alcoholism.  
> -Possible implied torture/inethical imprisonment: the method used to contain a certain villain is less-than-ethical (and stolen from other canon sources, spoilers: it’s the giant snake they use to capture Loki).  
> -Swearing.  
> -Temporary character death.  
> -Unhealthy mourning techniques, including binge drinking, denial, etc.
> 
>  
> 
> _“It is always better to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning.” – Beowulf_

Clint wakes up to sunlight streaming through the curtains, the smell of coffee perking in the other room, and the awareness that someone is sneaking around his apartment. He tenses up in his bed, fingers curling around the hidden gun he always keeps within reach.

“Jesus, Tasha, can’t a guy sleep in on a Saturday?” he says, rolling over once he’s sure it’s her.

“It’s Monday,” Natasha replies as she tears the curtains aside to allow bright sunlight into the room. It bleeds into his hangover and makes his brain want to roll over and die. He moans dramatically and buries his head underneath his pillow in response.

“Ugh,” he says eloquently, “if you blind me, they’ll fire me.”

“If you don’t get out of bed, they’ll fire _me_ ,” she snaps. He peers out from under the pillow at her and squints.

"It's today, come on." Her voice is firm and determined, as though he is one of her missions. Natasha rips the covers from his bed harshly and he winces.

"My dignity," Clint mock-moans.

"You never had any dignity," she snorts, and he returns back to his pillow sanctuary in reply. "What the hell are you doing here, Clint?" she asks. He hears the tinkle of glasses as she examines one of the bottles on his bedside table that had kept him company while he had reviewed security feed tapes. Her voice turns angry as she snaps, "Do you have any fucking clue how disrespectful –?"

"Natasha–"

"Were you planning on going to the funeral like this? For fuck's sake, Coulson –"

"I know!" Clint yells form underneath his pillow. "Okay! I know! I'm not drunk – I wasn't going – I promise," he stops, takes a deep breath, and starts again. "I wasn't going. I'm _not_ going. So it doesn't matter."

"You can't just hide–"

"I can if I want to."

"Stop moping," Natasha says severely, sitting down on the bed to wrestle the pillow away from him.

"I'm _not_ ," Clint protests. He scrambles to pull what's left of the sheets over himself as a shield. To hell with his dignity.

"Stop pining," she says in a softer voice. Clint freezes and wrings the edge of the sheet in one hand.

"I'm not pining," he mutters.

"Clint –" Natasha starts, but he sits up.

"I'm not – I'm just," his voice breaks slightly as he speaks, "I'm just _tired_." Natasha presses her lips together as he lays back down in bed, clutching the corner of his wrinkled white sheet to his chest. She folds her legs beneath her and reaches out gently to touch her fingers to his temple. Clint closes his eyes as Natasha cards her hand through his short hair. Her fingernails are long and scratch over his scalp for the next few minutes. He begins to drift off.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asks after the silence has become less palpable and more soothing.

"No," Clint mumbles.

"Are you coming to the funeral?" she asks finally. He hesitates to answer. "I have to leave soon, I have a few errands to run first."

"I'll go," he answers, surprising even himself. "But I'm not wearing black."

Natasha slides from his bed and pads silently to the door. He watches her through half-open eyes as she pushes it open and hesitates in the door frame, as if she's going to tell him something. He waits.

"Good luck finding another color in your closet."

*

The funeral is held right in the cemetery, with chairs set up around a podium and the burial site instead of a more private place. Clint supposes it's a media thing. Coulson doesn't have any family – at least, none that would be there.

A quick glance over the heads present in the crowd confirms his suspicions. SHIELD has its public face on today. All of the Avengers are there, minus Thor, who hasn’t been seen since he left with Loki.

Clint is late as he walks around trees and headstones, hands shoved into the pockets of his blue jeans, and he knows it. He hasn't made soon enough to hear the first few speeches, but he's just in time for the last. Clint spots Natasha next to an empty seat at the end of the second row, right behind Bruce Banner, Tony Stark, and Pepper Potts.

Clint sits besides Natasha and feels the stares bore into the back of his head. A purple t-shirt and jeans and late to his S.O.’s funeral, not to mention the part where it's kind of his fault Coulson is dead in the first place. What a scandal. They sure do love him these days.

"Ignore them," Natasha whispers. He opens his mouth to speak, but forgets his reply when the last speaker begins.

"I did not know Phil Coulson as well of the rest of you," Steve Rogers says, reading from a set of note cards and looking somewhat uncomfortable in his formal military uniform. "But I knew something of his bravery, especially during the attack."

Clint looks down. Natasha reaches for his hand, but he isn't looking away out of guilt – no, he's swallowing a smile and a giggle at the realization that _Captain America is giving the eulogy at Coulson's funeral_.

"What is it?" she mutters in his ear.

"It's…" he trails off, and looks up to Rogers, who is nobly gesturing as he talks about sacrifice. " _Captain America_."

Natasha catches the look in his eye and smiles, biting her lip. "God," she says under her breath, "I wonder if that's the only reason he agreed to this."

Clint glances up and realizes she's right. Steve Rogers, regardless of what good he has done as Captain America, has no right to speak for Phil Coulson. He doesn't seem to be the only person with that thought, however, because Tony Stark is getting up, shaking off Pepper's hand on his sleeve, and racing up to the podium like a bolt of lightning.

"Oh, god," he hears Pepper Potts whisper in front of them as she buries her face in her hands. "Why does he always have to do this?"

"Thank you, Captain, for those kind words," Stark says awkwardly as he pushes Rogers from the podium. He looks ready to deck Tony, but he doesn't, just crosses his arms and stands there at his side, waiting.

"Hi," he says, "I, uh, was not planning on speaking in front of a crowd today, but I'm sure Coulson is expecting me to go off the cards, wherever he is." There are a few laughs, and Stark smiles a bit before the grin slips off his face. He places a hand on either side of the podium and drums his fingers on the side for a moment before he starts speaking again.

"There are a lot of things I could say about Agent Phil Coulson," he says, "about his bravery. His skill. His sacrifice. I'm sure that's what we're all thinking, and I'm sure that's all anyone is going to say today. He was a good man, that's not up for debate. But he wasn't just some," Stark waves his hands around in the air, "some kind of sacrificial lamb."

"He never had to go up against Loki. He didn't have to, and that's what gets me. What was he trying to prove? Why would he, a mortal man with everything to lose, go up against a demigod?"

Clint looks down at his hands for a moment. He's been wondering the same thing.

"You can talk about bravery and heroics, and you can talk about sacrifice. But, who's talking about the guy who threatened to tase me? Who, if gas station security feeds have anything to testify, defeated an armed burglary with a bag of _flour_? Who had what is probably the second best Captain America collection in the world?"

"Who has the best? _Stark_?" Clint says in Natasha's ear a little too loudly. Rogers must have super-hearing, too, because he glances at Clint.

"He was dedicated. He worked constantly. He worked hard. And, he's the reason why we're all here." Stark gestures out at the crowd. "Not just here, but _here_. Alive. Not enslaved by evil aliens, or whatever. And that's just the stuff _I_ know about." A good amount of the agents in the crowd chuckle.

"But, really, the Avengers wouldn't be here if it weren't for him in the first place," Stark continues. "I can't speak for the others," he says as he gestures in their direction, "but Coulson was on my ass even before I became Iron Man. And after. Keeping me on track. Believing that I could be a, uh, a hero." He looks down now, and shuffles through the note cards Steve had left at the podium instead of looking at the crowd, his eyes moving rapidly as he reads over them.

 "He believed in Captain America, too, and Thor, and the Hulk. I'm going to assume he believed in Black Widow and Hawkeye, too, considering how he had them on some kind of team together. He's winning the superhero collecting contest already."

Clint gives up. He starts laughing silently.

"The fact that he believed in me, in Iron Man, when even I wouldn't – I mean, really, look at us,” Tony says, gesturing towards the others, “What are we supposed to be? But he knew we could do it. He trusted us. He put his life in danger, and he knew what the end result was going to be. So no, Coulson wasn't some sacrifice, someone we _needed_ to avenge, because he deserves more credit than anyone. He was the real hero of the day, and, coming from anyone else except one of us, or anyone who actually knew him, that doesn't mean any – _holy shit, is that a spaceship?_ "

Clint turns towards where Stark is pointing with a start, his hand jumping to his gun. Natasha swears beside him as a giant robot crashes over the hill and begins to shoot at them with laser guns.

Hydra.

"Seriously, today?" Clint mutters, reaching down into the bag he'd brought with him for his bow and quiver. Natasha pulls two guns out from somewhere and checks them quickly.

“They are so dead,” she growls as she hands him a comm device from her pocket and places another into her own ear.

"Did you _expect_ this?" he asks in disbelief. She ignores him.

"Stark, code is 4872792-B to patch into our comms, and Rogers will have one as well," Natasha tells Tony. He's back at his seat in the row of chairs in front of them, having run across the grass.

"Gotcha," he nods quickly, and then turns to Pepper Potts. He grabs a briefcase from her and sets it in the grass as he speaks in an urgent voice.

"Go with Happy," he says to her as he opens the case. "I'll be fine. Get out of here." Pepper nods, leans forward, and kisses him.

"Be safe," she says, her hand trailing through his before she turns tail and runs towards the cars with their bodyguard. In high heels. Clint is impressed.

Clint turns to watch as Tony stomps on the briefcase. It spurs to life instantly, covering his legs, torso, arms in metal armor that whirs and clanks into place. Iron Man's eyes power on.

"I don’t care what you say, that is so cool," Clint mutters to Natasha. Iron Man turns to face them and Clint involuntarily flinches back.

"Thanks," Iron Man says before blasting off. They all duck to the ground as a few laser beams shoot over their heads, slicing through the podium where Rogers and Stark stood just moments ago.

"Dr. Banner, if you'd rather –" Natasha starts, stepping towards Bruce, who has gotten to his feet in the row in front of them.

"Don't worry. I’ve got this," he says, shrugging out of his jacket and stepping away from the crowd before transforming before their eyes. Natasha flinches beside Clint as they watch his muscles ripple and turn green.

"Jesus, he _has_ been hanging out with Stark too much," Clint mutters to Natasha, and then turns to catch her eye. “You go. I'll hang out with Banner."

"Thanks," she mutters before darting off into the crowd of SHIELD agents converging on the robot. It picked the wrong funeral to crash.

Clint tears himself away from the sight and focuses on the task at hand.

"Hey, big guy," he yells up at the Hulk, who is looking around angrily. "You see those robots over there?" He's not sure if he should be talking to the Hulk as if he's a small child or just Banner in a big body. Clint wishes he had Coulson in his ear to offer advice.

Thankfully, the Hulk nods.

"Smash 'em up," Clint says, "but try not to hurt anyone else. Got that?" With a giant bound, the Hulk leaps to the robot and begins smashing with the help of Iron Man. Even Rogers is up there already, fighting off the Hydra agents that are streaming out of the belly of the robot. Clint takes a deep breath and runs to join them with an arrow on his bow.

The fight isn't necessarily hard. Hydra is so ridiculously outnumbered by SHIELD and the Avengers that it doesn't take them more than a minute to get the upper hand, and even then it only takes so long because SHIELD has to run over the hill of the graveyard to get to the attackers.

Clint loses himself in the fighting, the first real fighting he's had since – well, since the Battle of New York. The memories come flooding back much easier than he'd like, despite his attempts to keep them away.

_Five minutes into the battle on his rooftop corner, Clint raised his hand to his ear, pressed his comm into the flesh of his ear canal, and simply asked, "Coulson?"_

_He could hear Natasha, Stark, and Rogers. They could hear him._

_He couldn't hear Coulson._

_"Natasha," Clint said sternly as he nocked an arrow and brought a Chitauri down. He knew that Iron Man and Captain America are listening to him, that Fury could probably hear him on the Helicarrier, but he didn't really care. "Where's Coulson?"_

_Natasha didn't reply for a long moment, fifteen seconds, time enough for him to shoot down one Chitauri so that it took out the one flying below it._

_"Natasha," he said stiffly, "what–"_

_"I was going to tell you," she said, sounding breathless. "I wanted to make sure, to–"_

_"To what?" he snarled, shooting without thinking, his explosive arrows leaving a smoky stain in the sky. "Is he–?"_

_"He's dead," she said as Clint pointed straight at one of the Chitauri speeding past his corner._

_The arrow pierced the sky for a moment before exploding in the empty air._

Clint rolls to the ground as a laser beam shoots out towards him.

"Does anyone know how to take this thing down?" crackles Rogers' voice down the comms. Someone must have given him an earpiece.

"If I could get inside to take a look at it, maybe," Stark replies. Clint gets to his feet and takes a look around. They seem to be doing pretty well. He turns to Natasha, who is several yards away, perched on top of a statue of an angel and shooting at the long, tentacle-like arms of the robot.

"Hawkeye, do you think–?" Natasha stops to jump off the statue and land on a nearby Hydra goon, just as the laser beams from the robot come slicing through the air and cut the angel's head off. It rolls to the ground and bounces before Clint's feet.

"That brings a whole new meaning to 'Don't blink,'" Clint mutters, kicking the angel's decapitated stone head away as he straightens up. He needs to get on top of something, fast. Clint nocks an arrow and shoots one of the targets heading towards him. It's the first in a wave that precedes the giant tentacled robot machine.

"Has anyone ever seen Lord of the Rings?" Clint asks over the comms.

"Oh, _please_ ," Stark replies, as Natasha protests, "Clint, don't you _dare_."

"Sorry, Nat," he says, and then sets off towards the robot at a run. Clint ducks past bullets, lasers, and the giant robot tentacles that fly past his head. They're huge, but he manages to stick an arrow in the side of one and holds on for dear life as it takes him into the air. Clint rides it until he's standing precariously on the slippery metal top of the robot. He heads for the hatch, twists it open, and jumps down the hole into the control room.

There are seven Hydra agents inside. He shoots six and dodges a bullet from the last. It goes shooting past him, burying itself into one of the many beeping and flashing control panels. Clint shoots her and turns to the haywire control panel. He figures the resultant sparks aren't a good sign.

 Clint can feel the machine begin to tumble down, unable to stand upright without its pilot. He scrambles back up the ladder and onto the top of the robot once more.

Clint looks around in a panic as his feet lose their grip on the shiny metal surface of the robot. It's tilting and falling to the ground underneath him, the robotic tentacles now rigid and frozen in place, and he isn't going to be able to stay on much longer.

"Iron Man–" Rogers calls over the comms, but Clint knows Stark won't make it in time. He taps a combination into his bow and shoots a grappling hook. It catches on the other side of the robot and he uses it as leverage to keep himself upright, until he manages to jump onto one of the metal tentacles.

Clint slides down the tentacle and lands on the soft ground, rolling to break impact.

"Well," Stark laughs, stopping in front of him. "That still only counts as one."

Clint manages a laugh.

He looks around. SHIELD is already managing clean up and prisoner transport. The battle is over before it’s even truly begun.

"You are the biggest moron I've ever met," Natasha appears next to him, favoring her right leg. Rogers and the Hulk are next, neither injured and both looking tired.

“That was too easy,” Clint sighed.

"Come on, big guy," Stark says to the Hulk. He flips up his faceplate to speak to him directly. "Good job." In response, the Hulk sniffs with a loud, powerful burst of air and begins to shrink back into an extremely disheveled Banner.

"Ugh," Bruce mutters, looking tired and utterly trashed. "Does anyone have any pants?"

Rogers turns to Clint and Natasha as Tony finds Bruce some clothes.

"What's Hydra doing here?" he asks.

"We're not sure yet," Maria Hill says, appearing from nowhere in a disheveled black skirt and heels. She's clutching a communicator in her hand with a tired look in her eye. "Officially, Hydra has denounced this attack as the work of rogue agents." She shrugs.

"You're in contact with Hydra?" Rogers asks, confused.

"They have a Twitter page," Hill explains. Before Rogers can ask about Twitter, she continues. "You'll all need to head to headquarters for a proper debrief," she says before walking off to talk to other agents.

"Do we have a Twitter?" Stark asks, coming up behind them with a half-clothed Bruce leaning on his  shoulder. Rogers steps forward to help Bruce. "We need a Twitter. I say we get a Twitter account."

"I say we all find some underground bunker, far away from any potential explosions, and get drunk," Clint grumbles.

"Hm, after the debrief?" Natasha suggests. They all begin to head in the direction of the parking lot, through the wreckage that litters the graveyard. There are pieces of stone and debris left from the funeral everywhere. Clint kicks a twisted metal chair. It clangs satisfyingly.

"I second that," Stark says. "Banner? Rogers?"

Banner shakes his head and gestures to the too-large pants and jacket he's clutching around himself. "I've lost enough dignity for one day."

"I'll pass," Rogers says, "can't get drunk." Stark gasps overdramatically.

"You haven't partied with me, soldier." He winks, and Rogers looks away awkwardly as Clint snorts in Natasha's ear.

"What a shitty thing to do, though," Tony continues, "I mean, his funeral? Luckily it was, well, a SHIELD funeral, but – hey, did someone tell the cellist?" he says, looking troubled. Clint looks at Stark around Natasha's wild wind-blown hair.

"Huh?"

"His girlfriend or ex-girlfriend. Hell, his boyfriend, I don't know. He said he was dating a cellist, moved to Oregon or something, Portland, to become a hipster or something?" Stark gestures wildly and Clint’s gut twists.

"He had an ex-wife," Natasha murmurs. "I don't know where she moved."

"She wasn't a cellist," Clint shakes his head. "She was a – a clarinetist."

"Whatever," Tony sighs, "It's too–" he stops.

They pause at the end of the sea of knocked over and destroyed chairs, where half of the podium still stands. The other half lies smashed on the ground from the laser beams. Beyond it is the casket.

Clint freezes. No one moves as the wind carries a singed piece of the American flag from the top of the coffin to the grass as their feet. Rogers kneels to the ground to pick a piece up.

"No," Clint says, voice breaking. "No."

He rushes forwards, ignoring Natasha’s pull on his arm, and runs to the casket. It’s sliced in half, the wood cracked and burned from the laser beams that had torn through it. Clint hesitates in front of it, placing one hand on part of the lid, not daring to look inside.

"My god," he hears Rogers say.

"Clint, don't–" Natasha starts, but he ignores her and flings the lid open.

It's empty.

*

"Would you like to tell us what the hell is going on?" Stark says as soon as they burst into Fury's office on the Helicarrier. They were supposed to be attending a debrief, but – well, there was also supposed to be a body in Coulson's casket.

"Well, Hydra attacked the –"

"Where's Coulson?" Rogers says suddenly, stepping forward. "Sir, we were told that he was–"

"SHIELD agents who die under extraordinary circumstances are not buried, Captain Rogers." Fury stands up from behind his desk and walks around the Avengers to shut the door. "It's a security risk. As we do not know the nature of Loki's spear, we cannot be certain that we will not need to examine…its effects."

"So you're keeping his body around in case you need to study it," Banner clarifies, "And you couldn't just tell us? Had to make it a big burial, a media event."

Fury looks tired, Clint thinks. Clint wonders if he’s been sleeping, either.

"Let me guess, cryogenics?" Natasha asks quietly. Fury nods. "Why couldn't you at least warn us?"

"I didn't see any harm in letting you think you really were burying Phil Coulson," Fury shrugs. "There's no difference."

"You didn't see any harm in using him as a martyr, either, did you?" Clint says suddenly. Heads turn to look at him, silent in the back of the office. He steps forward to face Fury. "I may not have been there for your little show," he spits, "but you think I haven't watched all of the videos of that attack?"

"Clint," Natasha murmurs, stepping to his side. He ignores her.

"You think I didn't realize something was up when I heard that his Captain America cards were ruined? He'd never keep those cards with him, not on the Helicarrier. Not when we could be attacked at any time. Security feeds proved it. You put the blood on them," Clint snarls, "and it wasn't even _his_."

"Agent Barton–" Fury starts, but Clint cuts him off.

"You _sent him_ in there with Loki, he didn't go on his own. You sent him to get your precious Phase Two gun, you sent him to go after Loki, and you were more than happy to paint him as a hero after you'd sent him to his death. _Did we really need it that badly?_ " Clint sneers. "Do you really think he was a martyr, or was he _collateral damage_? You let your best man die in front of you, just so you could tell these bickering idiots that they had a reason to fight together."

"He wanted this, Barton," Fury replies, stepping towards Clint. “How would you know what he wanted?”

"He didn't want to die," Clint yells, swinging his fist back to punch Fury in the face. He moves, but not in time to avoid Clint’s blow. "You manipulative bastard," he growls as Natasha pulls him away. "I am _done_ working for you."

 Silence falls in the office as Fury wipes blood off his face from where Clint's fist had connected with skin. He glares at Clint with his singular eye.

"Agent Barton, what exactly do you think you're going to do without SHIELD?"

"In case you've forgotten, Fury," Stark snarls, stepping up beside him, "he _is_ a part of this little team called the Avengers. Maybe you've heard of us." Fury glares at Stark.

"The Avengers Initiative was created by SHIELD–" Fury starts.

"And look at you, still trying to control us," Rogers says, arms crossed. "You'd think you would have learned your lesson by now."

"I did what I had to," Fury snaps, "I did not intend to lose an agent out there."

"Yeah, but you sure as hell did," Clint mutters as he turns on his heel and stalks out of the office, Natasha on his tail. Rogers, Stark, and Banner trail after them silently.

"My place in an hour?" Stark offers after a silent, awkward moment. "We'll give Coulson a proper send off. Without SHIELD."

"Fine," Clint nods, surprising himself. "He would have loved to see Captain America reigning in his drunk, pain-in-the-ass coworkers."

Rogers actually smiles.

*

"And there was, uh, this time in Burma, where he took down five Hydra goons with one of Natasha's high heels," Clint slurs drunkenly. He stretches himself over the couch and halfway into Natasha's lap. She hits him with a pillow and he steals it to hold over his chest.

"They are deadly," Natasha agrees. "In many ways."

"So that's why Pepper wears them," Stark mutters to himself. Well, Clint figures he's Tony now, from the way they're all crowded around his penthouse drinking his alcohol.

"Not to mention Mumbai," she adds. "Ballpoint pen. He was good at that. Household objects," she waves her hand in the air drunkenly.

"Yeah," Clint mutters into his pillow, "– was." They lapse into a comfortable silence now, with only the sounds of Steve's pencil scratching across paper and the clink of glasses to fill the air.

"You should all move in," Tony says as he sets his empty glass down. Bruce, who's already living at Stark Tower, opens his mouth to speak.

"Tony," he starts, but Stark just shakes his head.

"It'll be awesome," he says, "make any future saving the world things easier. I'm already inviting Thor's girlfriend to work for Stark Industries, y'know, so that SHIELD doesn't snap her up. When Thor comes back, it'll be like a big fam – Uh, team thing. Yay, team."

Bruce stifles a giggle. Clint isn't sure he’s more sober than the others. He refuses to drink, but, from the way he's holding onto his cup of tea like a lifeline and the exhausted bags under his eyes, he's just as tired and lost as the rest of them.

Natasha raises her eyebrows and sets down her bottle. The look on her face when Tony had offered her vodka (“You’re Russian, right?”) was priceless. He's been two times more afraid of her than usual ever since.

"Okay," she says, shaking her head up and down. "Yeah, okay."

"Barton?" Tony says next, fixing him with a stare.

"Ugh," Clint says, rubbing his eyes. He wishes he wouldn't have ever suggested anything resembling this. "I kind of have an apartment. Thing."

"He has this rivalry with the local mob, it's really cute," Natasha smiles.

"Shut up." Clint tries to elbow her in the side and misses, elbowing her boob instead. Natasha glowers down at him. Tony's eyebrows go up.

"Ten bucks," he says to Bruce, who groans.

"Nope," he mutters back. "Doesn't count."

"God, I feel like a babysitter," Rogers says from the other side of the room.

"Shh," Clint says drunkenly, holding up his hand to shush Rogers. "Why are you betting on us?"

"Betting? Us? We're not betting on you." Tony says, but Natasha laughs over him. The terrified look on Tony's face at her unexpected fit of giggles is enough to send Clint over the edge, too.

"They think we're fucking," Natasha says as she calms down, the smile leaving her face entirely. Clint looses it.

"Well, ten bucks to me, then," Bruce smiles, and Tony reaches into his pocket to hand over the bill.

"I'm going to go…" Clint gestures towards the direction that he assumes the bathroom is in, and leaves them to it.

It doesn't take very long to find the bathroom. He knows where they usually are and what they usually look like from casing out tons of rich, modern-artsy places like Stark's penthouse while on ops with SHIELD. He doesn't use the bathroom, though, just throws some cool water over his face and draws a glass of it from the tap. It feels good, better than the burning of alcohol in his throat. Clint stares at himself in the mirror; the bags under his eyes, the hollow look to his cheeks. He wishes he could stay in this bathroom until the others are gone.

It's strange, being back in the Tower. The last time he'd been here, they had been keeping an eye on Loki, standing around awkwardly. There was none of the triumph that Clint expected in their victory. The memory is clearer than he'd like, even with the alcohol slowing him down.

_Clint sat close to the edge of the window, phone in hand as he looked over the debris of the smoking city. He was conscious of Loki sitting at the edge of his sight, sitting and glaring around. Clint dialed the number again and again, hoping that the satellites would finally put him through._

_"Cell phone service is going to suck for days," Stark said, coming up beside him. The suit clanked heavily over the floor. "But I can patch you through if you need to call your girlfriend or something."_

_"No, I–" he slipped his phone into a pocket and shook his head, feeling numb. "I don't have a girlfriend. It's – no one." Tony nodded like he understood, but the look on his face said something else. He left Clint to stand over Banner, who was passed out and recovering on a couch._

_"SHIELD's on their way," Natasha said finally as she came into the room, sliding her communicator into her pocket. Clint got to his feet quickly and looked over to her._

_"Should I –" he gulped, "– should I get out of here?"_

_"No," Natasha stepped forward with her arms crossed. "It wasn't your fault. There's no way in hell I'm going to let anything happen to you because of that." Clint forced his eyes to remain upon Natasha, ignoring the pull of Loki's gaze in the corner of his eye._

_"Thanks, Nat, but that might not be enough," he muttered. The room seemed almost stuffy to him, his breath not able to come in anything but short bursts._ It is my fault, _he thought to himself,_ it is. _Rogers came forward first, to clap a hand on Clint's shoulder and join him in front of the windows to stare out over the smoking city._

_"You fought well," he said after a few moments, "I’m with Agent Romanoff. They'll have to get through us if they try to blame you for anything." Clint nodded respectfully and turned away to watch Rogers out of the corner of his eye._

_Rogers pulled something out of his pocket. Clint saw him playing with it earlier – at first he thought it was a pocket watch or some other memento from Roger's bygone past – but it was only then that he could see what it was. A card, small, playing card sized, and –_

_"Where the hell did you get that?" Clint said suddenly, stepping forward to grab the card from Rogers' hands. A Captain America trading card, old, the edges slightly faded – with dried blood splattered over the card. Coulson's. But it couldn't be._

_"Clint," Natasha said softly as she stepped to his side. "Are you okay?"_

_"They were Agent Coulson's," Rogers replied instantly. His brow crinkled as he spoke, "Fury showed us."_

_"They can't be," Clint shook his head as he spoke and backed away from Rogers and Natasha. "Coulson wouldn't take his cards into the field. They're collector's items, he would keep them in his locker. He would never – Fury, did you say?" Clint bent the card a little in his hand as Rogers spoke._

_"He said they were in his pocket when Loki stabbed–" The words were drowned out by the pounding in Clint's ears._

_"Loki?" Clint turned on Loki, fist raised as he waved the card in his face. "What the fuck did you do?"_

_"Well, Agent Barton, is this really a surprise?" Loki shrugged. "You told me he had a certain…blind spot." The corner of his mouth turned up in the beginnings of a satisfied smirk._

_"You fucking bastard, I will –" Natasha appeared at Clint's side to stop him, ignoring his snarls as he tried to fight her off._

_"Clint," she said calmly in his ear, "Coulson went after him, he tried to stop him, he died fighting." Thor nodded and said something, but Clint wasn't listening._

_"I will kill you," Clint promised Loki in a low voice. "I will tear you apart, piece by piece, you bastard. I swear.”_

_"I'm sorry, Clint," she Natasha whispered as she dragged him away, "he's gone."_

_Loki just smiled._

Clint splashes another handful of cold water over his face. He hates this, the flood of memories, the stain of the Helicarrier and the Tower and the guilt at every turn. Before he can change his mind, he flicks off the lights in the bathroom, takes a deep breath, and opens the door.

He would have walked right past Rogers if he hadn't cleared his throat, so Clint starts a little when he realizes that the Captain is standing in front of one of the large windows, staring out over the lights of Manhattan.

"Rogers–" he starts.

"Steve," he says, "just Steve, please."

"Steve," Clint repeats. He doesn't say anything, but he joins Steve at the window. It's beautiful out there from this height, although Clint wouldn't say it out loud. He can see so much from up here.

"Are you alright, Clint?" Steve continues. Clint wonders when he gave Steve permission to use _his_ first name.

"Yeah, sure," he replies, shrugging. "How are you?"

"No, I mean," Steve shakes his head and trails off. "After the battle. Everything that happened with Loki. The Helicarrier. The funeral. Today, in Fury's office." Clint looks down at his hands, away from Steve and his concern. "Are you…how are you managing?"

"I'm great, thanks for asking, Cap," Clint says, the words falling awkwardly from his mouth. Even he wouldn't believe them. "I appreciate your concern."

"Don't be like this, Clint," Steve sighs. “I know. It’s harder than anyone wants to let on." Clint looks up at Rogers' reflection in the dark window. He's looking sideways at Clint with concern in his eye. "I lost a good friend. At first, it was…simpler, because everything reminded me that he was gone. But, later, when you get used to them not being there…you think to yourself, I should write him, see how he's doing…And that's when you remember. That's when it's the hardest."

"I don't think I’m going to be able to forget any of what happened for a long time," Clint mutters.

"I'm not saying you should forget," Steve replies. "Just that sometimes, closing yourself off just makes it hurt more. You'll always have a place on this team, Clint, as long as you want it."

"Thanks," he answers after a long moment, "I'm managing. For now."  It's as close to the truth as Rogers – or, anyone except Natasha – is going to get.

"Okay," Steve says, clapping him on the shoulder. Clint winces. He's the first to walk away.

*

It's not until Clint wakes up the next morning on Tony Stark's couch with a gigantic hangover that he remembers that he has quit his job at SHIELD, officially joined the Avengers, and technically moved into Stark Tower.

"Well, fuck me," he mutters as he sits up, wiping the sleep out of his eyes.

"Buy me a drink first," Tony mutters from a few feet away on the floor, "or Natasha. It's not too late for me to get that 10 bucks back."

"Give up, Stark," Natasha says brightly, appearing out of nowhere and making both of them jump. "Not happening."

"But he's so cute," Tony whines.

"God, this is disturbing," Clint tells them both as he buries his head underneath a pillow.

"You're telling me," Bruce says from the doorway, obviously just coming in to the conversation. "Omelets, anyone?"

"You cook?" Tony splutters, getting to his feet. "You've been holding out on me, Banner."

"Steve," he says simply. To Tony's horrified look, he laughs.  "Not sure what you remember, but you invited him to move in last night. All of them, actually."

"Well, shit," Tony mutters. "Yeah, I do remember. Great."

"Love you too," Clint laughs.

"Like I said, drink first," Tony calls at him as he and Bruce leave. Clint moans and holds his head.

"How come I'm the only one who seems to have a hangover?" he asks Natasha. She laughs at him.

"Just wait until Thor comes back. The Asgardians can probably hold their alcohol better than anyone."

Stark's kitchen is, unsurprisingly, huge and shiny and expensive. Clint doesn't think he could operate the coffee maker if he tried, but Steve seems to be able to cook omelets successfully, so maybe he'll learn eventually. Clint pulls out a chair and sits down just in time for Steve to set down a plate of bacon, omelets, and toast.

When everyone looks at Steve, mouths open, he just shrugs and sits down.

Breakfast is a somewhat awkward affair, with Bruce's uncomfortable silence, Natasha's impossible lack of a hangover, and Tony's coping mechanism – which happens to be flirting. With everyone.

"If this is what I get when you spend the night, Rogers, you're _never_ leaving," Tony says after he shovels the first bite into his mouth. He takes a large gulp of coffee and sighs in content before winking at Steve. Clint takes a few bites before he decides he's not hungry.

"I just stayed to make sure you guys were okay," Steve protests seriously, "I'm not sure that it would be a good idea."

"Don't say that," Bruce shakes his head, "please don't. He's been wanting to ask for weeks, and he never will again. Please." Tony pokes Bruce in the side with his fork. "Hey, no," Bruce snaps, "I am not edible."

"Not with that attitude," Tony mutters.

"Oh god, Tony?" Pepper says as she comes into the kitchen, holding a pair of heels in one hand, "did I hear that right? Did you ask them all to move in?" Natasha nods and Pepper breaks into a grin. Tony makes a face as she comes over to the table, but she kisses him for a long moment. Everyone else looks pointedly away.

"Keep it PG, guys," Clint shoots across the table, even though they're kind of cute. When Pepper and Tony break apart, Tony sticks his tongue out at him and Pepper squints across the table, her head turned to the side.

"Clint Barton, right?" she asks. "I've heard a lot about you." Clint looks accusatorily at Natasha, who shrugs.

"Don’t look at me,” she says, “Undercover means undercover.”

"Phil and I used to get lunch," Pepper explains, smile faltering a little. "He used to talk about you a lot." Clint looks down at his plate and pushes his barely-touched omelet around.

"Oh."

There are a few moments of even more awkward silence until Tony pushes his chair back with a screech. "I'm going to give you the tour now," he says. Begrudgingly, they all stand up and follow him into the hallway.

Stark Tower is posh, to put it plainly enough. It's fancy, in a modern-art-minimalist kind of way. It makes the hairs on the back of Clint's neck stand up a little, to be honest, but he isn't dwelling on that much right now. ‘ _Phil and I used to get lunch_ echoes’ through his head as Tony babbles on.

Did Coulson complain about him to Pepper? He feels guilty, somehow, for all the teasing and joking around that he'd done on operations. Clint shakes himself out of his thoughts and tries to pay attention.

"Okay," Tony says cheerfully, "First of all, Jarvis is the AI thing in the ceiling that I talk to all the time. He's like a robot butler. Always watching, in a non-creepy way." Clint looks up and tries to spot the speakers in and around the ceiling as Tony talks.

"Second, the top six floors are a part of the penthouse, where your suites are. There are 10 floors of labs and science stuff, but you'll need codes to get in there. Jarvis can help you get to the gym, or range, or swimming pool, or whatever; those rooms are all up here. Basically, this is like a Disney resort, minus the screaming children." Tony pauses to take a breath. "But we made an exception for Barton."

"Coming from the oldest guy here," Clint replies, putting on a falsely cheery voice. "Come on, pops, show us our rooms."

"I _can_ charge you rent," Tony warns Clint as he steps into the elevator.

"He remodeled this place in about two weeks," Bruce says wryly. The elevator doors ding closed. "Trust me, he wants you here."

*

"Excuse me, Agent Barton, but you have a visitor."

Although Clint has been living at Stark Tower for over a week, Jarvis' voice will always unnerve him. He startles and looks up from his tablet at the ceiling.

"I told you, Jarvis, it's not ‘Agent’ anymore," he sighs. "Who is it?" Clint asks, not looking up from where he's polishing his bow out of a lack of there being nothing better to do.

"Agent Jasper Sitwell of SHIELD."

"Shit," he says under his breath, "who else is home?"

"Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner are down in the lab. Would you like me to put you through?"

"No, no," Clint sighs, looking around his room. He grabs his SHIELD ID cards and weapons – minus his bow and quiver – and heads out the door. "Let him in the elevator, I'll meet him downstairs."

"That won't be necessary," Sitwell says, rounding the corner. Clint closes the door to his room and locks it behind him in one swift motion.

"Hey, Sitwe–" Clint starts, but Sitwell steps towards him and cuts him off.

"After your resignation and termination from SHIELD, you are required to turn in your identification cards and all equipment issued to you within 24 hours of official termination," Sitwell says. He sets a large case on the ground and clicks it open with his thumbprint. "Including all access cards, guns, knives, and any other weapons–"

Clint dumps his few cards, holsters, knives, and guns into the case, interrupting Sitwell.

"That's it," he says, nodding. "Have a nice day," he glares.

"Excuse me, Mr. Barton, but I'll need the recurve bow and –"

"Do you want my hearing aids, too?” Clint starts to take them out, one after the other, until he  can't hear a word Sitwell is saying.

He's a good lip reader, though, and Sitwell says "That isn't funny, Mr. Barton," as Clint holds them out. Sitwell's eyes widen and focus on something behind Clint, and he turns.

Tony Stark steps out of the elevator, arms crossed, t-shirt half covered in grease. It's obvious that he's just come from the workshop.

"– there a problem here?" Clint reads on Tony's lips.

He shakes his head and replies, "No, not at all," and turns back to catch Sitwell stuttering something about picking up SHIELD property. Clint's voice must have been a little too loud, because when he turns back to Tony, he's looking at him strangely.

"What's that?" Tony asks, pointing to the hearing aids in Clint's hand, and Clint hands them over, despite Sitwell's spluttering protests. It takes Tony a moment to figure out what they are. When he hands them back, he scrunches his eyebrows down at Clint and winks.

"God, that SHIELD tech sucks, you can just give them back," he says, making sure he's still facing Clint so he can read his lips. "I'll make you something better. Something ten times better. Twenty, in fact."

"Excuse me, Mr. Stark, but I was just telling Mr. Barton here that that won't be necessary. This is not SHIELD equipment –"

"Excuse me, Mr. – ?"

" _Agent_ Sitwell, sir."

"Sitgood, yeah, whatever, you said you wanted all of his SHIELD equipment, and this is SHIELD equipment, obviously. If it was anything else, it wouldn’t suck half as much. Barton here is an Avenger, and the Avengers are sponsored by, well, _guess who_." Tony crosses his arms and glares at Sitwell.

"Mr. Stark – "

"Yep, by me. So you can keep your hearing aids, and all of this shit," Tony waves a hand over the box filled with the tech Clint had dumped into it, "because I'm going to make stuff that's even better. Got it?"

He turns to Clint, as if he's asking permission, and Clint nods. He holds out his hand and drops the hearing aids into the box, relishing the disgruntled look on Sitwell's face.

"Jesus, and I thought I had some bad breakups," Tony mouths to Clint as Sitwell seals the box and bustles through the hallway towards the elevator. From the look on Tony's face, Clint can guess that Sitwell said something once his back was turned.

"Assholes," Clint mutters once the elevator doors close.

"What?" Tony says blankly, and Clint guesses that he's being too quiet. He hates talking without his hearing aids in. "Never mind, uh – Did they get the bow?" he asks, slowing down his motor-mouth for Clint's benefit.

"No," Clint shrugs. He looks down at his feet for a moment before he realizes Tony is probably saying something. _Damn,_ he thinks, _Natasha is going to kill me for this._

"Let's head down to the workshop," Tony says carefully when Clint looks back up at him. "We'll fix you up with some new aids, and get started on a bow for the next time SHIELD comes a-knocking."

Tony is silent on the way down in the elevator. He doesn't ask, and neither does Bruce when they get downstairs. For that, Clint is thankful.

*

" _You fucking idiot!_ " Natasha's voice blares into his ear, pitchy and squeaky through the hearing aid that Tony is fiddling with. Clint is perched on the workshop counter with his feet hanging over the edge like a child.

"Christ," Clint jumps, pulling it out and handing it back to Tony. "Less pitch, less volume. I think I just lost what little hearing I had left."

He turns to face Natasha, smiling a little as Tony takes a cautious step back. She snarls something at him, he can make out " _What the hell do you think you're doing?_ " before she stops in front of him.

"I'm sorry," Clint says humorlessly, controlling his voice carefully so that he isn't too loud or too soft. He gestures to his ear. "Can't hear you." Natasha crosses her arms and draws her finger across her throat threateningly, before going off on him in sign language, her lips moving quickly to keep up.

 _I can't believe how reckless you're becoming, you're acting like a moron – No, you_ are _a moron. Just because you're stuck on this_ fucking Coulson thing, _you think that you're unbreakable, but you aren't. You have no idea how they might hurt you if they find a way to get to you –_

At that point, Clint tunes out, eyes focusing on Tony, who has walked over with a giant, rolling whiteboard to stand behind Natasha.  He starts writing in messy handwriting.

 _sorry, couldn't make all of that out,_  
YOU WERE FUCKING COULSON?!  
holy shit ?? !

Natasha whips around, out of Clint's line of sight, to snarl at Tony. Whatever she says must be bad, because Bruce steps in to intervene.

"Everyone needs to calm down," he says slowly. "Natasha, I get that you're mad, but–"

Natasha must snap at Bruce, too, because Tony takes a step towards her and then back again. "Whoa, hold on a second," he says, but they're all talking at once and Clint can't keep up with it all.

"SHUT UP!" he yells, screaming with as much force as he can muster and hoping that it's loud enough.

When he looks up, their eyes are all glued to him, faces turned so he can see them.

"Tony," he starts, pointing a finger, "shut up. We were not –“ he breaks off "—and you can't read lips worth a shit." He skips over Bruce, who is laughing into his hand behind the other two. Well. That explains him.

"Natasha," he begins, "It's – it's like Havana," he stutters, thinking of palm trees and mob bosses faking their deaths.

"That was you and Coulson," she growls. He sighs.

"Just, let me explain."

"You better," she says. He reads the impatience on her face along with her lips.

"I don’t think Coulson is dead," he starts. Everyone in the room stares at him with wide eyes and open mouths. Clint holds up both hands to shush them. "No, let me explain."

"Fury lies," he starts, because he isn't sure where else to begin. He looks down at his hands so he can ignore the others even if they start talking. "He lies about a lot of things. He's manipulative. He'll tell you he ate Cheerios for breakfast if he suspects you have something against Wheaties." Clint glances up in time to see Stark smile a little. "So, Thor saw Loki stab Coulson. But, who saw him die? Who said he died? Fury did."

Natasha moves into his line of sight and mouths, "Why would Fury lie?"

"Why? Because Stark and Rogers wouldn't stop fighting," Clint says, gesturing off into the distance. He knows he's probably being too loud now, from the way Natasha winces, but he doesn't care. "Because he knew that the only way to get all of us working together, fighting together, instead of fighting each other, was to give us a martyr. A cause. Why the hell do you think we're called 'the Avengers’? He always planned for us to be avenging _something_."

Clint takes a deep breath and looks up. Bruce is stepping away from the whiteboard, marker in hand.

_Have you seen the video?_

"Yeah, I have," he nods, meeting Bruce's eye. "All of them. Including the one where he threw Coulson's Captain America cards at you and Cap," Clint continues, looking to Tony now.

"Yeah, and maybe Cap’s faithful sidekick Bucky is alive and kicking as well," Tony says sarcastically, crossing his arms. "So, Fury manipulated us. Doesn't mean that Coulson's death wasn't real. Fury's a smart guy, maybe he put two and two together."

"Okay, sure, because Coulson would keep his vintage, excellent condition, rare Captain America trading cards on him when he knew there was a demigod held captive on the Helicarrier. They were in his locker. Hill confirmed it." Clint stands up and walks over to the white board. He wipes it clean, picks up a marker, and begins to make a list.

_REASONS WHY COULSON ISN'T DEAD_

_\- Fury lies_  
\- trading cards  
\- no one saw him die  
\- life model decoy?  
\- coma?  
\- no body

Natasha taps Clint on the shoulder when he finishes the last bullet point and shakes her head.

"You heard Fury, it's cryogenically frozen," she says, signing the words simultaneously.

"Number one," Clint says, turning to underline his first bullet point. "Fury lies." He sits back on the worktop and fiddles with the marker cap as Tony and Bruce exchange a look.

"Okay," Bruce says, "that's easy. We'll ask to see the body."

"No." Clint shakes his head. "They'll replace it with a fake or a LMD or something. We'd have to do it secretly."

"What are you suggesting?" Natasha asks. Clint looks down to the marker in his hand and twists the cap between his fingers.

"We're going to break into SHIELD," Clint says, "and we're going to find Coulson's body."

When he looks up, Natasha, Bruce, and Tony are staring at him in shock. "What?" he starts, "I d–" He stops and turns around. Steve Rogers is standing in the doorway, arms crossed, looking furious.

"What?"


	2. Chapter 2

The silence in the room as they sit in the living room of the penthouse eating pizza isn't because of Clint's new hearing aids. (They aren't perfect yet, but they'll do as replacements for now.) Bruce had at least thought to order pizza. Steve is on his seventh piece of pizza before he speaks.

"How do you plan to distract the morgue attendant?" he asks curiously, looking from Clint to Natasha.

"Um," Clint starts. "Attendant?"

"Yeah," Steve nods, licking pizza grease from his thumb. "Her name is Joy." Clint thinks he feels his brain break a little.

"I'll do it!" Tony raises his hand on the other side of the room. Steve turns to stare at him. "Me. Yep. It's right next to tech. I'll go harass them and stop by to harass Joy."

"No," Bruce interrupts, "no harassing."

"I second that," Natasha adds.

"I can ask her to take an early lunch with me," Steve shrugs. They all stare at him. "What?"

"You are so…" Tony trails off.

"So what, exactly?" Steve snaps back, and they're at it again, griping at each other with Bruce half mediating and half laughing at them both. Clint looks down at his pizza and rolls his eyes.

"What are you going to do when you find his body?" Natasha asks him, sliding closer and lowering her voice below the argument.

"I think the question is, what are we going to do when we don't," Clint replies.

"Clint–"

"I know you think this is a wild goose chase. But there’s got to be something in it, Natasha. It all adds up.”

"I think you're seeing what you want to see," she interrupts him. "I think you're going to be disappointed."

"Is that what this is, then? You're worried about me? You know I can handle myself," he protests. "Natasha–"

"No, I don't know that. You've been different, ever since – since Loki, and I'm starting to wonder."

"Since _Loki_? You really expect me to be the same after _Loki_? That was –"

The sky chooses that moment to crack with ear-bursting lightning, and the lights of the city flicker out. No one says anything for a moment.

"How do we still have power?" Clint asks blankly, staring out the window at the darkened buildings of New York.

"Arc reactor," Tony says , tapping on the one in his chest. "Powers Stark Tower. Do you live under a rock?"

"Is that what you're calling this place?" Clint says, just as an alarm on Natasha's wristwatch goes off.

"That would be SHIELD," she starts, "high alert, intruders and –"

"Shouldn't we be getting something, too?" Steve says, getting to his feet and pulling his phone out of his pocket.

Their communicators go off simultaneously as the sky flashes yet again.

"Well then," Steve says. "Suit up, guys."

*

"Thor's back," Natasha tells Clint through the comms as he looses an arrow at the pretty blonde alien. Natasha and the alien are on the roof of SHIELD HQ, while Clint is standing on an adjacent building, trying to get a shot at the blonde woman.  

"I noticed," he replies. "These are Asgardians. What are they after?”

"I don’t know,” Natasha says. “The Destroyer isn’t kept on base. All that’s here is—“ she’s cut off as the woman swipes at Natasha with her hands, bringing with them a slash of green magic that Natasha somersaults from.

When Clint’s next arrow explodes a few feet to the left of the blonde, the woman finally turns on him with eyes and hands glowing green.

Clint scrambles back. “Oh, shit,” he mutters. The woman raises her hands to blast him with her magic from the other building.

"AMORA!" Thor booms over his head, descending from the skies with his spinning hammer held aloft. Clint winces as Thor's landing sends the concrete of the building flying. SHIELD headquarters isn't built to stand up to Asgardians, despite their wishes otherwise.

"Hello, Thor," Amora says, fluttering her eyelashes at him. It's disgustingly flirty. Clint exchanges a look with Natasha across the buildings.

"What are you doing here? How have these Midgardians wronged you?"

"Nat," Clint says into the comms, "I'm pretty sure this is a distraction or trap or something. There's no way blondie here would be this happy giving her little villain speech to Thor if she wasn’t sitting on a bomb or something." Natasha pauses, thinking.

"Hmm," Natasha considers. She takes a few hesitant steps towards Thor and the woman, Amora. Clint keeps an arrow trained on her. "When I give the signal," she mutters, before stepping towards the pair.

"I am telling you, as I have told Loki. Midgard is under my protection. I will not let you harm these people," Thor's voice booms out over the roof. Clint takes a deep breath, draws, and catches Natasha's eye.

He looses an arrow and ducks right as an axe comes flying his way.

"Clint?" Natasha yells over the sounds of more crashing. He rolls over on the rooftop, gravel digging into his bare arms (Seriously, why do they put gravel on rooftops, anyways?) as he scrambles away. He can tell from the sound of her voice that he missed the magical Asgardian. "Clint, I could do with some backup, she's used some kind of spell to break into the building."

"Little busy here," he mutters, getting to his feet.

A massive man stands over him, chuckling and wielding his retrieved axe. He steps towards Clint menacingly, an evil grimace across his face.

"Seriously?" Clint laughs, "nice moustache."

The man retaliates by swinging his axe at Clint.

"Fine, you don't know how to take a compliment," Clint snorts, dodging him. He nocks an arrow on the string and sends it towards the man while he dodges another assault with the axe.

"Keep talking," the man sneers, "you don't have much longer."

"Oooh," Clint snaps, "I'm so scared." He steps back towards the edge of the roof and taps a combination into his bow, dodging a few more axe swings in the time it takes his quiver to create the arrow.

"See you later," Clint says, nocking the arrow and loosing it at the man. He smirks when it goes past his head.

"Missed," he snarls.

"I never miss," Clint says, and jumps off the roof.

Thankfully, the grappling hook holds and he hangs there, staring at the 10 foot gap between himself and the top of the SHIELD building, where he wants to be. There's a barbed wire fence around the rooftop stopping him from jumping, because his life will never be easy.

"I should probably thought this out better," he mutters, looking up at the axe man, who is trying in vain to chop at the rope.

"Hawkeye, what the hell are you doing?" Iron Man says, appearing a few feet away. He fires his repulsors at the man a few times before sweeping Clint up in his arms. It's awkward and uncomfortable, but he sets him on SHIELD's roof within an instant.

"I was trying to get to Natasha," Clint says, looking around. "Her and Thor were here a minute ago."

"They're inside the building," Captain America says, appearing out of nowhere.

"And the Hulk?" Iron Man asks.

"Banner's sitting this one out," Cap says. “Too much collateral damage could occur at close quarters like this.”

"What's the plan?" Clint asks, picking up the few arrows he'd lost on the roof and sticking them back into his quiver.

"Hawkeye, you find Thor and Widow and see if you can keep an eye on them. Iron Man, where did the axe guy g–"

"I AM THE EXECUTIONER!" the man yells, appearing behind Captain America and bringing his axe crashing down on the shield. It makes a loud clang, the noise vibrating in Clint's ears and making his new hearing aids crackle.

"Really? Who's the axe for? Buckbeak?" Tony laughs. Clint hesitates, arrow nocked.

"We're fine here, go give Widow and Thor backup," Cap says. He slings his shield around and knocks the Executioner's legs out from underneath him. "Go!" he says after Clint fires an arrow that the Executioner blocks with his axe.

Clint doesn't hesitate any longer.  He attaches his rappel device to the chain-link fence, then tosses the rope down the hole Amora made in the roof. He rappels down through the hole, past twisted metal and crumbling concrete, leaving Steve and Tony behind to deal with the Executioner.

He lands in the middle of an empty and evacuated office. The lights are dark, but the emergency exits are lit by the emergency generator. Clint presses a button to unhook the rappel device from the fence, sticks it in his pocket, and heads for the stairs, following the path of upset desks, computers, and chairs littering the floor. They must have gone down.

"Nat, where are you?" he says through the comms, but she doesn't answer. "Shit," he swears to himself, before muttering “Cap, can you give me Widow's location?" over the feeds.

"Kinda busy here," Steve replies, the sounds of crashing and yelling carrying through in the background.

"Scanning…" Stark's voice crackles through his ears. Clint winces and twists one of the aids in his ear. "They're on the lowest level."

"Right," he mutters, looking over the edge of the staircase. He can see straight down to the bottom. It would take him forever to run down all those stairs, so he'll have to rappel down through the middle.

"I've always wanted to do this,” Clint says with a smirk.

"What do you think they're going after down there?" Steve asks through the comms.

"Not sure," Clint replies, "There's a lot of stuff down there…storage, archives, the morgue, and – oh, we are fucked," he groans, jumping off the stair railing to slide down the rope. "The scepter," he mutters, "she's after the scepter."

As Clint slides down the rope and through the stairwell, he passes a few agents who are heading  downwards. They stare or shout something in his direction that he can’t quite make out. It looks like they're evacuating the building.

When Clint touches down on the bottom floor, he sprints for the door.

"Hey, guys, are they in the middle of evac?" he asks as he nocks an arrow, ready for whatever is on the other side of the door. He opens it and sneaks a look down the darkened hall.

"Hawkeye, you need to–"

 The feed cuts off as he enters the hallway of the lower levels.

"Of course," he mutters.

The hallway is eerily deserted. He had expected SHIELD personnel everywhere, but the building is definitely being evacuated, if the lights flashing in the hallways ( _orange orange red_ ) are any indication.

"Nat?" he tries on the comms, but it still doesn't come in. A few of the doors in the hallway are open. He peers cautiously in the first one, the morgue, but it's empty and dark, abandoned by its attendants. The archives are locked and closed, as are the equipment storage rooms. The next door, the only one in the hallway with retinal and fingerprint scans, is blasted open. The metal of the sealed doors is still smoking, but that’s nothing compared to the thick fog rolling out the door and into the hallway.

R&D Restricted Storage. Of course.

Clint steels himself, arrow nocked and ready, before stepping into the fog.

It's impossible to see anything in the room, just the fog pressing down on him from every angle. He's nervous about breathing in the stuff, but it doesn't seem to be noxious – it smells like water, like normal fog. There's nothing normal about it, however.

 _I hate magic_ , Clint thinks. He takes a few steps straight forward into the room, eyes straining to see anything at all. He wonders if Natasha and Amora are quietly prowling around, and where Thor is. He doubts Thor could stay this quiet.

After a few moments of oppressive silence and empty fog, Clint speaks. "Is anyone actually here?" he asks, and is greeted by a bolt of green energy that he doesn't see until it is too late, burning through his gut and making him feel as though he's going to vomit. He tries to get out of the way as quickly and as quietly as he can, trying hard not to retch or moan as the magic rips through his system for seconds. He can't breathe.

Someone appears above him in the fog, a looming feminine figure. Clint prepares to lash out, but she ducks down and shakes her head, red hair flying. It's Natasha.

 _"Where's Thor?"_ he asks her in sign language.

 _"He's out,"_ Natasha signs back, _"she put him under a spell and then cast a fog throughout the room, stopped the fans and everything. She's after something in here. I'm not sure if she's found it."_

 _"The scepter?"_ Clint gets to his feet as the magic bleeds out of him. It feels likely that his ribs are bruised, but he's dealt with worse on the field.

_"Probably. Hill evacuated everyone, though. I'm thinking something bigger."_

_"Got a plan?"_

_"Remember Prague?"_ Natasha smirks as he scowls (Prague means doing all the spy work himself, crawling through air vents that collapsed under his weight while Natasha sat around and eating doughnuts and playing cards with Coulson. Fucking all-male security guard teams.) and points towards the ceiling. Although he can't see it in the fog, he's been down here before. It's pretty high up. _"You're the SHIELD air vent expert."_

Clint opens his mouth, shuts it, and signs at her, _"That's just a rumor."_ How the hell does she expect him to get up there?

 _"So are a lot of things,"_ she replies, raising an eyebrow. _"Want to comment on those, too?"_ He narrows his eyes at her, whips an arrow out of his quiver, and aims carefully for the ceiling.

"Good luck," he says as he shoots. Natasha fades into the fog. Clint ducks, rolling out of the way and avoiding being hit a green bolt of magic. His minor explosive arrow detonates a moment afterwards. Clint is shaken off his feet by trying to avoid getting hit by debris.

Clint grunts in pain as he bumps into a table, but Amora seems to be distracted by the explosion. He climbs up onto the table, carefully shoving the remains of gutted weaponry out of the way of his boots.

He squints through the fog as he nocks and aims an arrow towards the ceiling. It's near impossible to see through the fog, much less the dust in the air. Clint takes a deep breath, drawing the string back towards his mouth. He can do this, shoot blind. Easy peasy. He's Hawkeye.

The grappling hook takes root in the concrete and the rope goes taught in his hands. He swings forward and climbs up as quickly as he can. His arms are strong, but the rope still digs into his hands as he climbs. Finally, he reaches the air vent, exposed in the ceiling by his arrow’s explosion.

The metal is torn open and sharp around the edges from the explosion, still hot to the touch. He scrambles into the tight space, cursing Natasha and her ideas and hoping that the vents won't collapse under his weight (he doesn't lurk around in the air ducts, despite what the interns say). He scrapes himself a little on the way in, but they hold his weight. Of course SHIELD would have reinforced vents.

It doesn't take him long to reach one of the fans. It’s set into the bottom of the air vent, meant to pull air out of the room and clear it if necessary. Sure enough, it’s frozen, caught in some magic meant to prevent it from moving. It takes a few pushes to get it moving, but the spell breaks. The fan begins to spin, filtering the fog out, and then Clint is blind and spluttering in the foggy air vent.

He climbs over the fan and makes short work of the other two fans. He can hear the vague sounds of witty banter and fighting between Amora and Natasha, and something that sounds like Thor's voice as well. He makes his way back to his rope as quickly as he can, but, by the time he slides down to the ground, it's too late.

"Beware, mortals," Amora says, holding the scepter threateningly. She shoots a bolt of electric-blue energy at Natasha and smirks as she ducks to the ground. She turns to Clint next and grins at him, pulling the staff back slightly. He knows inexplicably what she'll do next – bring her energy forward, into the staff and to the top, let the energy leech into her and out of her and the bolt towards him – and he rolls to the floor, nocking an electric arrow mid-roll.

Amora meets his eyes. Clint draws and looses the arrow.

He misses.

Amora disappears in a flash of green and blue magic, the energy leaving a sparkling haze in her wake.

Clint lays on the floor, still and silent, staring at his arrow, two feet away from his target, embedded in the wall. It sparks a few times before fizzling out completely.

"Clint?" Natasha says, kneeling by his side. She sounds slightly winded, and, sure enough, she's bleeding out of a cut on her forehead, and there's a neat slice through the arm of her suit. "What happened?"

"I, uh," Clint swallows, shaking his head and searching for words. "Her eyes." He stops for a moment to take a deep breath. "They were gray."

"Her eyes were green," Natasha says.

"No," he mutters, "for a moment, I could have sworn –"

"Amora?" Thor says, feet away, sounding like he's just waking up from a dream. "Enchantress?" he growls as he gets to his feet, hammer in hand.

Natasha and Clint exchange a look.

"Hey, Thor," Clint says, stumbling to get to his feet and away from Natasha. He's still short of breath, his ribs burning from the magic. "How's it going?"

"Where has Amora gone?" he growls, lifting his hammer and looking around the room for her.

"We need to get out of here," Natasha says suddenly, sounding concerned. She points over to a device sitting on one of the tables. It's blinking ominously."That's why they evacuated."

"That's one of the things we got from that mission in Mombasa, isn't it?" Clint asks. "The EMP explosive…things. Oh. Not good."

"Not good," Natasha agrees.

"Can we shut it off?"

"Why the hell do the comms not work down here?" Iron Man says as he walks into the room, helmet up. "Is she gone?"

"Stark," Natasha snaps "We’ve got an explosive. Can you shut this off?" He steps forward to examine the device, his footsteps clunky and loud.

"What the hell? It’s an EMP jamming mechanism, for comms and radio signals,” Tony says, then pauses. “With explosives. Was that necessary? Who designed this, Apple?" He stops to peer at it closely.

"AIM," Clint shrugs, "Coulson said it was experimental."

"Can you disable it?" Natasha interrupts.

"Of course I can," Stark says as he slips out of his gauntlets to poke around with the thing. "I think." They hold their breath as they watch him gently open the bomb and poke around the wires. Clint bounces on the balls of his feet as he watches Stark swear and mutter to himself, then rip out a few wires.

It goes dark.

“Taa-daa!” Tony says, taking a step back.

"What is that device?" Thor asks, peering at it as though it’s a snake that may bite him.

“It blocks signals and explodes when someone tries to tamper with it,” Natasha explains. “After she knocked you out, she filled the place with that fog. She must have found the staff after that.” Natasha glances at Clint. “She must have set the device undercover. She shouldn’t have known where it was, or how to do that.”

Clint shrugged. “Beats me. _I_ don’t even know how to work that device.”

“She was trying to block our communications,” Stark said. “She got away in the confusion. That Executioner guy did, too.” He glanced at Thor. “He was a strong guy. Steve even looked a little winded. What are they feeding you in Asgard, huh?”

Thor laughs. “It is good to see you again, Stark. Although, I am sorry it has to be under these circumstances.”

“Yeah, SHIELD’s basement gives me the heebie-jeebies, too. Let’s get out of here,” Stark says. He and Thor make their way from the R&D room, cracking jokes.

That’s his cue to leave, too, before SHIELD shows up and tries to penalize him for being in a restricted area above his clearance level.

Clint hesitates, staring at his arrow embedded in the wall.

"Come on, Clint," Natasha says gently, ushering him out. "We'll find her."

*

It's dark outside by the time they're done with SHIELD and get a chance to bring Thor back with them to Stark Tower. They enter quite conspicuously through the lobby. It must be a sight to the businesspeople, scientists, stock brokers, and officer workers mulling around in suits and heading home from the day's work; Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Thor, battle-torn and dirty, standing in the fancy lobby.

"We have got to ask Stark to put in a back entrance," Clint growls. He rubs at the back of his neck and tries to ignore the stares.

"This is a fine hall!" Thor says, smiling at the bystanders. "I am pleased to see that it has been restored since my last visit."

They make it halfway to the elevator before they're ambushed by a young woman in blue jeans and a beanie hat.

"Lady Darcy–" Thor starts.

Darcy stops before Thor, draws herself up to her full height, and slaps him across the face. Natasha steps forward to intervene, but Clint throws out an arm. He recognizes her from New Mexico.

"You are the _biggest_ jerk ever, do you know that?" she says, hands on her hips. Clint also recognizes her friend, the scientist, Jane, standing next to her in a plaid men's shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He vaguely remembers hearing something about them working at Stark Tower now. They must have come down here as soon as they'd heard that Thor was back.

"Darcy," she says, flinging out an arm to no avail. "Darcy, stop!"

"My apologizes," Thor starts. "What did–"

"How about we take this upstairs, ladies?" Natasha says, looking around at their onlookers.

"Good idea," Steve says. He goes ahead of them to call down the elevator.

"Fine. But this is going to be the most awkward elevator ride ever," Darcy says as the six of them squeeze in and try to avoid eye contact.

They last until five seconds after the doors close.

"You and Jane _kissed_ –"

"Darcy, don't–"

"–and you left, and when you came back you didn't even call–"

"I don't need you to fight my battles, I am an adult–"

"–Meanwhile she's being shipped off somewhere by SHIELD and I have Agent Sunglasses knocking on my door asking me if I'd like an internship–"

"It's not an internship if you get paid," Jane points out.

“It’s called a _paid internship,_ ” Darcy shoots back. Jane narrows her eyes. Clint takes the slight pause as an opportunity.

"You were the recruit Coulson kept talking about?" he asks, eyeing Darcy a little more closely now.

"Yeah, what of it?" Darcy replies, crossing her arms and drawing herself up to her full height. "Are you the moronic archer Sunglasses kept talking about?"

"Sunglasses – I mean, Coulson talked about me?”Clint blinks, taken aback. Natasha sighs loudly next to him.

They’re interrupted by Thor, who kneels down on one knee.

"My lady Jane," Thor says, taking her hand in his as he stares up at Jane.

" _What the actual fuck_?" Darcy breathes, turning away from Clint to look down at the Asgardian kneeling on the sticky, crowded floor of the elevator. “A _re you shitting me, what the fuck is happening?_ "

"I apologize for my behavior,” Thor says, looking up at Jane. She looks utterly charmed. “It was inconsiderate to you, and to Lady Darcy, not to contact you during my return. I hope I have not misrepresented my gratitude and affections. I would have returned earlier, but we needed the tesseract to repair the Bifrost, and I had no way back to you until now." Jane just stares down at Thor with wide eyes. She lets out a little puff of breath.

"Thor, I–"

The elevator doors open with a ding. They all stare out of it, startled to catch Bruce and Tony standing in the hallway, caught in the middle of an argument. They stop and stare at the six people crammed into the elevator; Clint and Natasha trying hard not to make eye contact and burst into laughter, Thor kneeling before Jane like he’s proposing, and Darcy glaring at them all with her hands on her hips.

Steve walks calmly out of the elevator, steps between Tony and Bruce, and heads towards his room as though nothing out of the ordinary has happened. 

Clint can't help it, he covers his face with his hands and breaks into a fit of hysterical laughter that only sounds a little like he’s actually crying.

*

"So basically, she's like Spike, and you're Buffy?" Darcy says, taking a huge bite of her cheese pizza. Clint wonders if she's related to Tony, who is inhaling pizza in the same manner across the table. "And Gimli is her bald minion?" Jane snorts beside her and glances unreadably at Thor. She and Thor spoke a little in the hall, but Natasha had pinched him when he'd tried to eavesdrop.

"Hey!" Steve interrupts, holding up a hand as he speaks around his mouthful of pizza. "I'm only on season two."

Thor opens his mouth, probably to ask what a Buffy is and how a spike can be obsessed with one, but Jane pats his arm and tells him it's a television show. She glances at Darcy, who shrugs.

"If Amora is after your…affections, and you aren't interested, would she resort to teaming up with Loki to get her way?" Bruce interjects. Thor considers this (or he could be considering the pizza, Clint isn't sure if he's ever had any before) and nods.

“By the way, that’s really fucking creepy and horrible,” Darcy comments. Thor glances at her.

"Power is what Amora craves, most of all,” Thor says. “As my wife, she would one day be queen. She was banished from Asgard a long time ago for her evil ambitions, regardless. Loki craves the same power as Amora. If Loki has some kind of influence over her, it is an old alliance. He is incapable of such magic at the moment."

"Where is the little – rascal?" Clint chokes as Natasha steps on his foot under the table.

"He is confined by my father's magic on Asgard," Thor says, eyes downcast. "As is the tesseract." As much as Clint wants to know, the looks that Natasha is giving him are warning enough. "We have been using it to repair and power the Bifrost."

 "If Loki is no longer a threat, and the tesseract is in safe hands, why did Amora want the scepter? What could she do with it without the tesseract?" Bruce asks Thor with crossed arms. Clint can almost feel the discomfort spread across the room.

"What I want to know is," Tony starts, flapping his latest piece of pizza at Thor, "did you hit that?" Jane looks as though she'd rather like to know this as well.

Bruce shakes his head at Tony’s idiocy before asking, "How did she get it to work? It's been inactive since the cube went to Asgard, right?" He looks questioningly at Clint and Natasha, the supposed SHIELD liaisons.

"Don't ask me," Clint mutters, but Natasha nods affirmatively.

"They couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work," she explains. "Once Loki was out of the picture, there was nothing. No light, no power. It became a glorified spear."

"The only person who could answer our questions is beyond our reach, now," Thor says, ignoring Tony.

"Is he really?" Clint asks, crossing his arms. He's tired and hungry, the rush of adrenaline burned out of his veins, replaced by a gnawing hunger and a dull anger. He doesn’t have an appetite for pizza, though, not while they’re all sitting there talking casually of Loki. "How do we know that? How about we try to get some information out of him? It's only fair that–"

"What are you proposing we do?" Thor protests, "torture him? Although Loki's crimes are many, I do not think–"

"There's got to be another way," Tony interjects. "What does Amora _want_? Besides you, buster?" He punches Thor on the arm enthusiastically.

“I do not think this is a joking matter, Stark,” Thor says, his voice a low rumble. “Would you make jest if it were the scorned potential lover of another? Would the harassment of, say, Natasha, or Darcy, or Pepper be as amusing to you as Amora seems to be?” Tony actually _shuts up_ for a minute, and Clint stares at Thor. “Just because her gender is female, it does not make her any less of a threat, or her advances less than the violation that they are. It would do you well to remember that.”

Tony stares at Thor for a moment, and nods tersely. “Noted.”

"Steve," Natasha says suddenly, after it’s clear that no one wants to follow that up. "You've been quiet. What are you thinking?" Clint watches him sit up straight, stare down at the table, and keep his mouth in a firm line.

"The Executioner was a distraction," he says slowly, "and so was Amora. I don’t think it was about Thor, not this time. They knew where they were going, they knew what they needed. They got in, and they got it. They didn't stick around, they didn't gloat or give a long speech on world domination. They even knew how to set off that bomb."

"They're just pawns," Natasha nods.

"Loki's pawns?" Clint says. Thor ignores his accusatory glare and looks at his hands.

"It is…likely," he says reluctantly. "Although I don't see how–"

"Yeah, well I do," Clint spits. Natasha puts a hand on his arm, but he shrugs it off and stands up, scooting his chair away from the table with a scraping noise. "Maybe your dad isn't as powerful as you think, and Loki’s just sitting around in a world of comfort while his friends do his dirty work. How do we even know that we can trust Asgard?" he asks.

"Excuse me," Jane says, piping up suddenly. Her and Darcy have been quiet for the past few minutes, watching the Avengers’ conversation with rapt interest. "But, so far, Asgard has been cooperative with Earth. They've only protected us and helped us."

"Are you forgetting about Loki?" Clint says in disbelief. "He tried to enslave the Earth – or were you too busy looking through a microscope to see the attack on New York? People _died_ because of Asgard."

"That's not–" Darcy starts, but Jane silences her with a hand.

"Don't insult my intelligence," Jane snaps back at him, "Loki does not stand for Asgard, and you know it. You've fought alongside Thor here – hell, you fought _for_ Loki, you should know who he's working for, and it's only himself. Yeah, Loki might be behind Amora and her friend, but that's no reason to question Thor's loyalties. He never had to come down to this realm in the first place to help us."

They all look to Thor, who appears both proud of Jane’s argument and sobered by the seriousness of Clint’s point.

"If my presence offends you,” he begins.

"No," Natasha, Steve, and Bruce say in unison.

"I think," Natasha says wisely, "we all need to calm down. Think of where this got us last time." Clint can't believe that she's taking their side on this – she knows as well as he does what Loki is capable of.

"No, I don’t think calm is the reaction we should be having," Bruce says, which is extremely worrying, considering that "not calm" for him is giant and green. Clint subtly reaches behind his back and gets a grip on one of the knives he keeps hidden. He can barely tell that Natasha is worried, too, which is concerning, as the Black Widow is good at hiding her emotions when she wants to.

"Oh, _now_ he takes my advice?" mutters Tony.

"You're the green dude, right?" Darcy asks casually, looking him up and down and checking him out with raised eyebrows. Bruce blinks at her and nods, startled for a moment.

"What I'm saying is,” Bruce says, turning away from Darcy, “that we should be worried. There’s a time to be calm. That time isn’t now. We need to be concerned, and we need to take action, and fast. We should talk about this, figure it out,” Bruce continues. “What are we doing here? Why did we move in to the Tower together? We’re not really a team – not yet. Do any of us even know what we’re doing here?” Clint can hear an edge to his words, the rage that Bruce always has bubbling under the surface. It’s easy for him to say that. Bruce is never calm.

“I know what I’m doing,” Steve says. Clint suppresses the urge to roll his eyes. Of _course_ Captain America knows.

“Mooching food off me, maybe?” Tony mutters to himself.

Steve ignores him. “I don’t work for SHIELD anymore – none of us do – but that doesn’t mean that we’re done. The world’s going to need us again. It did today. And I think that the six of us can do a lot of good here. You want to make it official?” he says, looking Bruce in the eye as so few do. “Fine. I’m making it official. The Avengers Initiative was Nick Fury’s ideal, but we can make it our own. The Avengers. We can be whatever we want to be.”

No one knows quite how to follow up Steve’s speech. They sit there awkwardly; Jane and Darcy meet each other’s eyes, Bruce folds his hands and considers, Thor and Natasha nod in unison, and Tony looks at each of them in turn, judging.

Clint just stands there at the edge of the table, wondering why it’s taken them this long to figure out that they’re all here to _fight,_ when people had fought and died while waiting for them to make these same decisions before.

"Well,” Darcy breaks the silence, crossing her arms and leaning back in her chair, “an awesome crime-fighting, world-saving superhero group?" She smirks. "I'm in if none of you are."

Surprisingly, Steve smiles.

"Well?” he says to the others.

"I’m in," Tony says suddenly.

"And I," Thor booms.

"If you'll have me," Bruce says quietly.

Natasha nods.

The rest of them look to Clint, still standing and watching them carefully.

"Alright," he says. "But we're not doing this with SHIELD – we're our own people, we make our own decisions. We fight our own battles, and if SHIELD wants our help, SHIELD comes to us. Agreed?" They all nod their descent, and Thor gets to his feet to shake Clint's hand.

"I think a celebration is in order!" he booms.

"Oh, I am so on that, big guy," Tony laughs, getting to his feet. "Jarvis, can you order up a couple of cases of beer? We need a proper toast. And call Pepper, she'll be out of that meeting in a few…"

Clint turns to Natasha to say something, but he loses his train of thought once he sees her tapping away on her phone.

"What's wrong?" he mutters underneath the loud celebratory voices of the others.

"Something's up at SHIELD," she murmurs back looking up at him briefly. "Calling all agents."

From across the room, Darcy’s phone goes off. She says, "Oh, shit, I hate this job," and scoots her chair back with a screech.

"Shouldn't–" Clint starts, but Natasha shakes her head to stop him.

"It's probably a debrief kind of thing, after today. I can't stay,” she says apologetically.

"Aww, Nat,” he protests, a sinking feeling in his stomach.

"Stay away from the tequila," she laughs fondly as she gets to her feet. Natasha joins Darcy and sways out of the room with a small backward glance to him. Clint is about ninety percent sure it’s pity.

Clint barely has time to turn around before someone shoves a glass in his hand. Tony is yelling about confetti and champagne and fireworks, Thor is laughing as Darcy and Jane chatter away at him, and Bruce and Steve are talking Tony out of celebratory explosives. Clint shakes his head a little. They're all crazy.

"Hey!" Bruce says, trying to get everyone's attention, "Everyone–"

"QUIET!" Tony bellows. Everyone looks at Bruce, who holds up his champagne glass and smiles nervously.

"I think," he says, "we should have a toast. Because we're all here, almost, and we're all uniting for a common cause. And not arguing for once."

"To Phillip Coulson," Thor booms, raising his glass. "He was a brave warrior who made a noble sacrifice. May his memory live on in our hearts, and may we carry him with us always to battle."

"To Coulson," they mutter, raising their glasses to the light. Tony nudges Bruce with his elbow. He mutters something in his ear, but _"Do you think Barton–"_ are the only words that Clint can read on his lips. Even Steve casts a skeptical glance his way.

Clint holds on to his glass and watches the others as they close their eyes, tilt their heads back, and drink.

He pours the expensive champagne into a fake potted plant and leaves the room.

*

Clint wishes that he could forget what it was like to be under Loki's control. It was almost freeing to be caught in the thrall of the tesseract, to forget his inhibitions and worries. That is the worst part – no matter how much he hated being under Loki's control, no matter how much he hates himself now because of it, he can't deny his own feelings.

He had liked it.

One moment, Clint is laying on his bed, staring at his ceiling, wishing he could forget.

The next, he's stumbling through a dark city street lit only by a single flickering street lamp.

He know he should be nervous, he should be afraid, but he isn't. He knows what he's doing here. He has a purpose. He knows where he needs to be. There is no need to be afraid.

The door that he's looking for is worn and old, the green paint flecking off of the wood. The bricks are blackened and worn by time and graffiti. Clint pushes open the door and steps inside. It's dark except for the street lamps outside, but his eyes adjust quickly in the darkened, dusty room. After a moment, he hears the sounds of weeping echo across the room. Clint stops in the door. It creaks.

"Hello?" someone says inside. Their voice sounds cracked and broken. "Who's there?"

Clint doesn't respond. He follows the noises until he stops at the corner. A man is crouched there with his back against the wall, shivering as he sucks breath after breath in and out. He's covering his face with his hands, trying to muffle the sounds of his crying. Clint can tell he's trying to breathe deeply and calm down. He's having a panic attack.

"Hey," Clint says. He doesn't know what to do now that he's here – he listened, he's where he's supposed to be – and he feels the doubt creeping in with the absence of certainty. "Hey, it's okay. You're okay." And, okay, this is right. This is why he's here.

The man ignores him for a few moments, muttering, "No, no, not you," until Clint speaks again.

"Excuse me, sir," he says, feeling awkward. But this is why he's here, isn't it? "But it's okay. It's alright, you're safe here," he says. "Are you alright?"

The man stops weeping and looks up to Clint with familiar bright blue eyes.

"Barton?" he says.

Clint jerks awake.

"Coulson?" he mutters to his empty bedroom. "What the hell happened to you?"

Clint rushes to the bathroom in his suite. He doesn't turn on the light, just splashes water over his face and stares into the mirror, into his own eyes. He remembers the vivid blue glow from before, the way his vision had blurred through the spectrum. There's none of that now. But he had been so sure in the dream – sure of everything.

There's no one in any of the hallways or the elevator as Clint heads to Natasha's room. He doesn't even hesitate before he opens the door.

"Natasha?" he says hoarsely, stumbling into her room and expecting it to be empty. He's surprised to find her sitting in bed, reading a file on her StarkPad and frowning. "You're back."

"Clint?" She turns to him, looking concerned, and wipes the screen of her tablet clean. He clears his throat and steps into her room hesitantly, letting her read the restlessness on his face.

"Bad dream?" she asks. He nods, clenching his fists and blinking a few times to pretend as though he has a spike of adrenaline keeping him awake. "Wanna spar?" she offers, sliding out of bed and stretching a bit. It's not unusual for one of them to wake the other up after a bad dream – it's just convenient to wear off the adrenaline and get some training in all at once. "Give me a sec to change. I'll be right down."

Clint heads down to the gym without her and does a few warm-up stretches as he lets his mind wander. He dreamed of Coulson. All things considered, it wasn't unusual, but there was something else there. Something in the back of his mind, drawing him, leading him, something that made him feel numb and cold.

"You ready to lose?" Natasha calls across the gym as she steps through the doors.

"Are you?" he replies, forcing a smile as she steps up to meet him.

They start on the mat with a few easy punches, Natasha going far too easy on him in his post-sleep haze, but it barely takes a minute for them to really get going. Natasha is beautiful in the midst of battle, red hair flying as fast as her fists, body swishing around to knock and slice and twist.

Clint is almost as good as her. Almost. He's counting on it as he throws his punches a little, leaving his side wide open. When she goes in for the obvious hit he flips her, hard. She growls angrily at him and uses her legs as leverage to bring her back onto her feet, simultaneously bringing Clint down with his own weight. He can see the kick coming as he tries to get to his feet, knows he can dodge it, and moves right into her line of fire.

Natasha's foot connects with his head.

"What the hell?" she yells angrily, shocked. "Are you alright?"

Clint looks around, only partially surprised to find himself on the ground, and blinks a few times to get the stars out of his eyes.

“Clint! Are you alright?”

He sighs in relief as they fade and waits for it to all come flooding back. Natasha kneels over him, glaring down at Clint, her red hair like blood he can’t wash from the corners of his vision.

"Yeah, I," Clint mutters, "I am now."

"You did that on purpose," Natasha snaps at him, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "Why would you–?” Realization dawns in her eyes. She narrows her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tasha, I –"

"Am an idiot?"she finishes for him. Natasha sits back on her heels and looks at him strangely. "Are you having nightmares about him?" she asks, more softly this time. "Is that it?"

"Don't you try your psychological bullshit on me, Natasha," he growls. Clint tries to prop himself up on his elbows, but he's still dizzy from the hit.

"If you were being controlled by Loki, we would know," she counters. "You're being illogical. If you were under his control somehow, you wouldn't have risked losing it like that."

Clint takes a deep breath and gets to his feet, fighting away the urge to fall over the rest on the solid ground. Natasha follows disdainfully, cutting off his escape. His vision swims before him for a moment before it slowly settles. He's fine, except for the migraine building between his eyes.

"I had a dream," he admits. "It felt like…like it was inside me again. Like I wasn't _me_ anymore. I thought, if I just go to you–"

"You wanted to do it on your own terms." Natasha nods. "Fine. But you're still an idiot."

"Thanks," he chuckles. Clint brings a hand up to rub his temple. "Ow. You've still got it."

"I never lost it," Natasha counters. "I was pulling my punches."

They leave the gym and go back to their own rooms to sleep. Clint falls into bed and doesn't dream at all.

*

"Hey, Clint, buddy, wake up."

Clint jolts up in bed and looks around, wondering where the emergency is.

"Stark?” he mutters, rubbing at his eyes. “What is it? Aliens? Mutants? Robots?"

Tony is leaning against the door frame with a slightly amused look on his face. Clint blinks the sleep out of his eyes and suddenly realizes that Tony is wearing an apron and clutching a spatula.

"Before you say anything," Tony protests, holding up a finger, “Number one, Rogers forced me into it. And number two, you talk in your sleep, so I have blackmail material." Clint narrows his eyes.

“Get to the point, Stark,” he growls.

"We – Ste – Rogers is making pancakes." Tony looks down at the spatula in his hand like he's not sure how it got there. "And he's teaching me how."

"Uh." Clint gapes. He can't quite picture that.

"Natasha told me to wake you up," Tony continues and ruins the moment. "I wasn't going to say no."

"Ugh," Clint groans, collapsing back onto his bed. "Goddamnit."

"What? You don't like pancakes?" Tony looks affronted. "Or is it a lover's spat? Because Bruce totally owes me back.”

"No," Clint shakes his head. "It's, ah, it's." He waves his hand blankly in the air. "A thing."

Tony sighs and glances out into the hallway. He steps inside Clint's room and shuts the door behind him before stopping a few feet away from the bed. "This really isn't any of my business at all," Tony says. Clint raises an eyebrow. "But she's worried about you. She thinks, uh, it seems like you're locking yourself away or something. I mean, I don't know you very well, but," Tony shrugs. "It really isn't my business. We've all got a lot of baggage." Tony pauses, leaving an unsaid question in the air.

"Pancakes, you said?" Clint replies, "yeah, I like pancakes. Nat’s sick of ‘em, though, for future reference."

"Clint–"

"I'm not going to compromise the team," he interrupts, and then chuckles bitterly. "At least, not any more than I have already."

"That's not what–"

"No," Clint shakes his head. He looks down at his hands and picks at a nail as he talks. "You have the right to question that, I get it. I screwed up and it cost a lot. And the moment that you forget that, the moment you let yourself get comfortable…" He exhales. "You can't risk it. I get it."

"Clint," Tony says, opening his mouth to search for words, for something to say. Clint watches him fumble for a few moments, twirling the spatula around in his hands. He walks over to one of the chairs in the room, turns it around, and sits in it backwards.

"I'm going to assume that you've been in a lot of near death situations, being a super secret agent and all," Tony taps his spatula against the chair. "The way I see it, there are two possible approaches you can take to facing your inevitable mortality, or failure, or whatever you like to call it: lie in misery, or fuck shit up."

"We all know you chose the latter," Clint snaps back without thinking.

"Yeah, I did," Tony says, "imagine that. And it wasn't pretty. Well –"

"Get to the point, Stark," Clint growls.

"I'm not going to say it gets better," Tony tilts his head to the side, "because, in my opinion, that's bullshit. But it gets easier. After awhile. Especially when you let people in." He pauses to stare at Clint for a few moments. "And just because he's done on this Earth doesn't mean your life is."

"On this Earth?" Clint raises an eyebrow. "He?"

"I think Thor went on about Valhalla and the sacrifices of our fallen brothers or something for an hour one night," Tony shrugs. "But you're Mr. Conspiracy Theorist, so I'm just leaving that up for interpretation." When Clint doesn't respond, Tony sighs. "Look, I know you and Coulson were close–"

"Stark, I get it." Clint will say anything to get Tony out of his room now.

"And I know it ticks you off that he died. But, in my opinion, that's a stupid reason to mope around. Especially when he was so dedicated to you – to this team."

"And if I still want to check out SHIELD's story?" Clint asks slowly. "If I want to be sure. Will you help me?" Tony considers before answering, which Clint figures is only fair.

“SHIELD is headed by a lying, manipulative bastard,” Tony says, “of course we’ll help you.” Clint turns the corner of his mouth up in a forced smile.

Tony stands up from the chair and heads towards the door, pulling it open as though he’s about to leave. He hesitates with a hand on the door, though, and Clint’s heart sinks.

“But that doesn’t mean we’re denying the possibility that Coulson is really dead,” Tony says quietly. “You have to face that alternative sooner or later.”

"Thanks," Clint mumbles without feeling.

With a nod, Tony disappears into the hallway. Clint breathes a sigh of relief.

"Oh," Tony reappears, still twirling his spatula in his hand like a baton, and uses it to point at Clint. "And if you breathe a word of this," he gestures to himself with the spatula, then points it back to Clint, "to anyone, I'll tell them exactly what I heard you muttering in your sleep about –“

Clint throws a pencil at Tony's head, and Tony ducks into the hallway. The pencil sticks in the wall.

“Idiot,” Clint mutters, and then stops in horror when he realizes he sounds…almost _fond._ He lies back in bed and stares at the ceiling, trying not to think too hard about it.

A moment later, his phone goes off on the nightstand. It's a text from Natasha:

_Am I going to have to kill Stark?_

Clint smiles as he types his reply:

_no, but keep an eye out for blackmail material for me, will you?_

_Already done._

*

It's easier than he would have imagined to sneak into SHIELD headquarters. With Natasha's access cards in hand (they had been easy to swipe from her room – too easy, so he hopes that this means that he has been forgiven, or at least forgotten), he creeps from hallway to hallway, staircase to staircase, until he ends up on the bottom floor.

The wreckage from last week’s attack from Amora is gone, and security is even harder to dodge than usual. Clint stands awkwardly in the empty stairwell and waits for his signal, lurking behind a trash can.

"It's a great day for it, though," he hears Steve say as the door to the hallway swings open, revealing him arm in arm with a pretty brunette. _That must be Joy_ , Clint thinks as they make their way up the stairs to an early lunch.

Clint checks his watch before sliding through the closing door. Security will be around in another 2 minutes. He slips through the door and heads down the hallway quickly, counting in his mind.

The door to the morgue is unlocked, just as Steve promised. Clint keeps the lights turned off as he makes his way over to the computers and pulls out a flash drive. He plugs it into the computer and waits. After a minute the screen goes blank, then flickers back on.

 _Hello, Cupid._ scrolls across the screen in red text. Clint rolls his eyes and types back.

_just get on with it_

Clint glances nervously at his watch while Tony works on hacking the system from the Tower. It only takes a few minutes to hack into the records (dead personnel files aren't the highest priority when it comes to network safety), but Clint spends them waiting anxiously.

Phil Coulson's file pops up on the screen, followed by the address to his…well, drawer, and the accompanying pass code.

"M-27, AE29JD8," he mutters to himself, looking around. He's never been in the morgue before, but he knows that this can't be the place. There's nothing but plain old equipment here, no storage. Clint squints around in the darkness until he spots the door.

 _i need the door to cold storage open_ , he types into the computer. It clicks open.

Clint turns away from the computer terminal and heads for the door. He'd like to pause, like to hesitate and think about all of this, but he can't. The storage room is long, the ceiling low, with walls lined with drawer after drawer of cryogenically frozen agents, enemies, and who-knows-what. He reads the number of the drawers far too slowly as he walks down the hallway, imagining security guards bursting in and shooting at him. He'd really rather not get into a mess like that today.

Finally, he reaches M-27. It's just a square metal drawer set into the wall, handle and electronic lock included. Clint punches the number into the number pad and waits.

 _Phil Coulson_ , reads the small electronic screen in bright blue, _5-4-2012._

_Open? Y/N?_

Clint hesitates, his finger over the touch screen. He selects _Y_.

The lock clicks open.

The drawer sticks a little as he slides it out. It's cold to the touch, and a blast of cool air hits Clint as soon as the drawer is opened. This is it. There's a cloth spread over the space in the drawer, as usual, and Clint hesitates with his hand over the cloth.

He pulls it aside, revealing the contents of the drawer.

There's nothing there.

*

Clint meets Bruce a few doors over as he exits one of the storage rooms, where he's been consulting on some work on a gamma-related device. The theory is that no one will question them when Bruce – and, by association, the Hulk – is involved.

 Bruce raises his eyebrows questioningly when he sees the look on Clint's face. Clint shakes his head in reply.

"But what–?" he starts, but Clint interrupts him, thinking of the bugs and security cameras.

"Later," he mutters quietly. "Come on, let's get out of here."

No one gives them a second glance as they head up the stairs and leave the building. Clint wants to rush up to the offices, up to Fury and Hill and Sitwell and everyone who had ever dared to tell him they were sorry for Coulson’s death. He wants to scream, to yell, to run through the offices and yell, “He’s _alive_!” because, even if he doesn’t have proof, Coulson’s _got to be._

He wants to laugh in their faces, to cry alone, to curl up on the couch in Coulson’s office and wait for him to walk in and say, “Barton, feet off the cushions. _Now_.”

He wants to ask them if they knew. If they know.

He wants Coulson back already.

Clint just wants to know _why_.

The others are waiting for him and Bruce when they return to Stark Tower. Natasha, Thor, Steve, and even Tony are there; whether it's to join his conspiracy or do damage control, he isn't sure. Natasha tilts her head at him, a wordless warning, and Clint swallows down all of the fear and hope that’s building up inside him like baking soda in a bottle of vinegar.

 He takes a seat next to Bruce and clenches his fists.

"Clint," Natasha starts.

"It wasn't there," Clint bursts out. "He's gone. He was – I don't think he's dead. He can’t be dead."

Watching their reactions is almost exactly as he had predicted. Natasha looks thoughtful, Thor confused, Bruce and Tony exchange small smiles, and Steve gets up from the table to stand at the window. They believe him. They’re _listening_ to him. He could fly.

"What are we going to do next?" Clint asks.

"Is there any chance that his body could be somewhere else?" Bruce asks, looking to Natasha. Clint opens his mouth to protest, but Bruce holds up a hand. "It's the most obvious explanation."

"It's unlikely," Natasha says, but Clint can tell from her voice that she’s holding something back. "Extremely unlikely. If he was in the system, he's supposed to be there."

"Then explain to me how he _isn't_ there," Clint growls.

"Perhaps it was not a mortal wound after all?" Thor suggests.

"He came back as a vampire and rose from his gra – er, drawer?" Tony suggests. "Or, y'know, Fury was lying and manipulating us, as he does, and we should show up at his office and say we want Coulson's body." He pauses for a moment. "Wow. Awkward mental picture." Clint glares at him across the room.

"This isn't a joke, Stark," Steve says, turning away from the window. "We need to think this through. We're on shaky ground with SHIELD as it is. We can't go around accusing them of…whatever it is you say they've done." He nods at Clint.

"Okay, so what do you propose we do, _Captain_?" he responds with a sneer. Natasha sends him a loaded look that screams, _Watch it_ , but he just feels so helpless.

"Whether or not Coulson is really dead, Fury manipulated us for a reason,” Steve says thoughtfully. “He wanted us to stop fighting amongst ourselves and to work together. Without some kind of martyr, we wouldn’t have a reason. We wouldn't be the Avengers without anything to _avenge_ ,” says Steve, pacing back and forth as he speaks, the team listening carefully to every word.

"Really?" Stark mutters, "I thought it was because the name sounded cool."

"Fury's afraid that, if we think that Coulson isn't dead and realize SHIELD has been playing us, that we'll call it quits. Go our separate ways for good. He nearly destroyed his job just getting us together, right?" Steve looks around at the others for confirmation.

Natasha nods. "Yeah," she says, "he's under a lot of heat from the Council right now. All he needs is his team – which he bet everything on – to turn on him. He'll be betting on us sticking together to keep his job."

"Son of – Agent Coulson is nothing but a reminder of Fury's mistakes," Thor adds, "perhaps he believes that we will not remain steadfast with that knowledge."

Bruce toys with his glasses as he speaks. "Let's say that we show up and ask Fury about Agent Coulson," he says. "If he's alive and Fury knows something, he'll panic. What was your first bulletpoint, Clint?"

"Fury lies," he mutters. Tony snorts.

"What, have you been watching too much _House M.D_.? Everybody lies, we get it." Tony flings his hands around as he speaks. "What does Coulson have to do with us? I barely knew the guy, I mean, did any of us?"

"Watch it, Stark," Clint snaps.

"He was our handler," Natasha supplies. “Clint’s S.O.”

"What is a 'handler'?" Thor asks.

"He coordinated our missions, our files, reports, and schedules. Made sure we trained, or, in some cases," she smirks in Clint's direction, "stayed in medical until we were ready to get back on the field. He kept an eye out for us in SHIELD. Agents can't do it alone."

"That's it!" Tony snaps, "that's what we need. We need a handler. We need a SHIELD liaison thing."

"Tony," Bruce starts, "is this really relevant?”

"Yes, it's relevant. Of course it is,” Tony sighs, waving his hand in Bruce’s direction. “We’re talking about Coulson here. SHIELD. The team. We need something, someone, who we can talk to when we need to get through red tape. We need a handler. We need Coulson.”

"Which would be great,” Clint mutters, “if Fury hadn't been trying to convince us that he's _dead_."

"Which is why we're going to go to Fury's office tomorrow and, instead of confronting him about lying to us, ask him if Coulson can come back from the dead already, because we’d like to keep Avenging with him as our SHEILD liason," Tony claps his hands together triumphantly. "And hope and pray that he's not actually dead. That a good enough plan for you, Uncle Sam?" Tony smirks at Steve.

"Fine," Steve nods reluctantly, "that's not half bad. Even if we’re wrong, we’ll still be in Fury’s good books. Staying together as a team, wanting to work with SHIELD…It could work. It’s an eventuality we’d have to face down the road, anyways.”

Clint grits his teeth and bites his tongue. If only it were that easy.

*

Clint dreams of a darkened, crappy old motel room lit only by the flickering red sign. It casts the room in a red haze, and it takes his eyes a moment to adjust to the shadows

He doesn't speak a word. He knows he's supposed to be here. He knows he's needed. That's all.

He looks around. It's an average dingy little motel room, with a suitcase filled with new clothes (the tags are still attached, he notices) sitting open on the floor. There's a gun sitting on the nightstand next to the phone. It’s loaded.

A man lies in the bed with his back to Clint, the covers pulled up around his bare shoulders. Clint has a feeling that he already knows who it is as he circles the bed.

"Barton?" Coulson says weakly. His eyes are open and bright in the darkness.

"I'm here," Clint says, kneeling beside the bed to reach Coulson's eye level.

"I thought–" he starts, then stops, closing his eyes. "I wished you here. You aren't real."

"I'm the one who wishes you were here," Clint mutters. _It's a dream,_ he thinks, _I'm dreaming. What the hell?_ He reaches out a hand tentatively to touch Coulson's face. He can't feel it, can't feel cold or warm, but he just misses Coulson _so much_ …

"Barton," Coulson sighs, bringing a hand up to hold Clint's there. It's strange – he can almost feel it, if he tries. He _wants_ to.

"Sir," he starts, "sir, I never said–"

"No," Coulson eyes snap open, "no, _don't_."

Clint sits up straight in bed, his eyes burning with the memory of the tesseract, blue and bright and strong.

"Coulson," he whispers, clenching his fingers around the covers. He curls his knees to his chest and breathes for a few moments, trying to level out. "God, I miss you," he murmurs to himself.

*

Fury's office seems small with all of the Avengers inside. Especially when they're standing over his desk , dwarfing him with accusatory glances. Clint is especially proud of this fact.

"Director Fury," he says, because he had been elected the honor by the others (or, "drawn the shortest straw," as Tony had put it). "As an independent group, the Avengers would like to appoint a SHIELD liaison so that we may coordinate with you." Fury raises an eyebrow.

"Okay," he says, surprising them all. "Do you have any suggestions?" Clint takes a deep breath.

"We would like to request Agent Phil Coulson as liaison," he says. Fury raises an eyebrow.

"Don’t play games with me," Fury says angrily. "You know Coulson is dead."

"Aaah, don't play games with us, Nick," Tony smiles. "We know."

Fury stares at them for a long moment, taking each of their expressions into consideration. Clint knows what he's doing, making them wait. He's putting himself in control, making them rely on his answer and hinge on his every word.

"Come on, Fury," Clint says. “We know there isn’t a body in his drawer.”

"Sit down," Fury sighs, motioning at the six chairs in front of the desk. He's obviously been expecting them. Clint wonders if he knew about the break-in and was biding his time to use the opportunity for his own means.

Fury types at his computer for a second, bringing up a surveillance feed on the wall. Clint recognizes it after a few moments. It's the hallway of the lowest level. The date stamp reveals that it's from the day of the battle with Amora and the Executioner.

"Do any of you remember the exact time that Amora picked up the scepter?" Fury says, bringing up another video feed alongside this one. The morgue.

"I wrote in my reports that it was around four minutes past fifteen hundred hours," Natasha responds, "but she smokebombed the place before she got it, so I couldn't see. I was judging by the timestamps on the video feed."

Fury starts to play the videos side by side.

"This was when her smoke spell went off," he supplies, and they watch as smoke begins to filter through the doorway on the edge of the hall. "And this is a few moments later, when she got the scepter." Clint watches in shock as one of the drawers rattles and opens, as though it's been kicked out from the inside.

On the screen, Coulson sits up and climbs out of the drawer. Clint thinks he hears Bruce gasp. Coulson hesitates for a moment, as though he’s unsure of what to do, but it passes and he closes the drawer and makes his way through the morgue, limbs moving stiffly.

"What the hell," Stark mutters under his breath. "Someone call the Winchesters."

"There's more," Fury says as the feed continues. Clint suddenly notices himself on the screen to the left, walking through the hallway and making his way to the doors farther down, bow held taught. After a few moments, he dives into the fog inside the room to face Amora.

 A second after that, Coulson steps out of the morgue doors and looks down the hall.

"Holy shit," Clint breathes. He was _so close._

When Coulson walks off screen, Fury cuts to a video of him walking out of SHIELD headquarters and onto the streets, unhindered. The feed stops there, and the Avengers turn to stare at Fury as he crosses his arms over his chest.

"He's alive," says Steve. "How?"

"Did you notice it?" Fury asks, rewinding the footage to show Coulson as he had looked down the hallway. He stops on one particular frame and zooms in. The image is pixilated, but it's easy to make out Coulson’s face, his head tilted to look down the hallway, his bright blue eyes looking straight into the lens of the camera.

“Son of a bitch,” Tony murmurs.

"I'm not sure all of you recognize what this means," Fury starts, but Clint interrupts him.

"His eyes. That's what I – that's what it looked like when Loki had someone under his control with the scepter. Bright blue eyes." Natasha is the only one who doesn't avoid Clint's gaze after he's done speaking.

"But Loki does not have the scepter," Thor says, "and Coulson was never under his control."

"But Amora has the scepter." Bruce looks thoughtful. "Maybe, something she did while she was hidden under the cover of the fog brought him back."

"You have heart," Clint mutters to himself. He drums his fingers against his thigh.

"You want to share with the class, Clint?" Natasha asks.

"That’s what Loki said that to me when he, y’know,” Clint clears his throat. “He said, ‘You have heart.' I didn't think anything of it," Clint shrugs, "but Loki stabbed Coulson through the heart." He sucks his breath in through his teeth.

"So that's why it didn't work," Tony says, half to himself.

They turn to stare at Tony in shock.

“Tony,” Bruce says in a choked voice.

“What?” Tony shrugs. “It didn't work on me, and that's all that counts."

"I can't believe you," Steve starts, shaking his head in disdain, but he seems to realize that this isn't the time to start something with Tony. "So. Maybe it's that, then. Amora woke Coulson up somehow with her magic."

"How would she have known of Coulson in the first place?" Thor asks.

Bruce takes off his glasses and cleans them as he speaks. "Maybe it was accidental. The scepter was connected to the tesseract, right? If that power was running through it, maybe it bonded with Coulson when it went through his heart. When Amora took the scepter, she reactivated it. If Coulson was the only victim with that kind of wound, or if he was the only victim still preserved through cryogenics,” Fury nods in confirmation, “then the link between the tesseract and his wound would cauterize it. It got his blood pumping. Unfroze him.” Bruce puts his glasses back on. “It’s a theory.”

"That's what we've been trying to figure out,” Fury says. Clint thinks Fury looks smug – at least, until _he_ decides to open his mouth.

"The question is, where is Coulson now?" Clint asks, glaring at Fury.

"We don't know," Fury says finally. "We have people looking for him, but he's lying low. Staying off of security cameras. We don't know where he is, what he's after, or if he's even really alive. We do know that he can’t be in complete control, otherwise he’d be here."

"What is SHIELD doing to find him?" Bruce asks. "He'll know how you operate. Ordinary measures aren't going to work here."

"SHIELD is treating this as we would any other compromised agent," Fury answers. Clint can feel his hands shake a little as he realizes what this means.

 _Oh god,_ he thinks, _they're assuming he's like me._

"We are trying to track him and eliminate the threat."

"When you say eliminate…?" Steve begins to ask.

"Shoot on sight," Fury answers. Clint gets to his feet abruptly.

"What the hell?" he yells. “You can't do that, he's not in his right mind!" Natasha stands beside him and nudges her arm up against his.

"Yeah, I think I'm with Barton on this one," Tony says, getting out of his chair as well. The rest of the chair legs in the room scrape against the floor as they all get to their feet.

"I understand that this might be personal to you –" Fury starts.

"What the hell are you talking about?” Clint spits defensively.

"– due to your past experiences," Fury finishes. He stands up to meet Clint, nearly at eye level. Clint crosses his arms over his chest. "But this is how SHIELD operates. We are not risking another catastrophe."

"Why didn't you just tell us about this as soon as you knew?" Natasha asks, hands on her hips. Clint surveys her closely. He had assumed, up until this moment, that she had known since the other day and had decided not to tell him. He hadn't considered that Fury might lie to her as well. "We could have helped. We could have him back here already, _alive_."

"It was not imperative," Fury responds, "I think you'll all agree with me when I say that the Avengers Initiative has always been, for lack of a better word, unstable. We did not want to upset the balance that you’d built up."

"Bullshit," Tony snaps. "You should have told us. What did we do at the Battle of New York? What did we do when Amora showed up? We handle this kind of thing, Fury."

"So," Fury says, and Clint knows from the haughty look on Fury’s face that whatever he's going to say next isn't good. "How do you plan on _handling_ Phil Coulson?"

*

That night, Clint goes down to the workshop so Tony can look at the latest version of his hearing aids and fix a few bugs. He types in his code and slips through the door, only to realize he's interrupting some kind of quiet discussion between Bruce and Tony. He turns to leave, but Tony sees him from across the lab and calls out.

"I can leave, if you're–" he starts, but Bruce shakes his head.

"It's probably good you're here, Steve was about to call for a meeting, anyways," Bruce says. Clint looks around for Steve, only to find him messing around with Tony's blender and talking to a robot arm.

"I just can't call this thing Dummy, Stark," Steve calls across the workshop, "I feel like I'm insulting it."

"It's a robot," Tony shoots back. “You can't insult a robot."

"And yet you do all the time," Steve replies. Bruce rolls his eyes exaggeratedly and motions for Clint to join him. Clint sits in a chair and leans back on two legs.

"You'll smash your head in if you keep doing that," Natasha says from behind him, startling Clint. He falls forward and lands on all four chair legs with a small crashing noise. "Told you so,” she chuckles darkly.

Thor's entrance to the workshop is less quiet, considering how large he is.

"Good evening,” he says cheerfully. “Are we going to be discussing our battle strategy?”

Tony gives Thor the side eye until Bruce pokes him in the side with a marker, starting a small poke battle on their side of the table. Steve wheels the whiteboard across the workshop and in front of them, and goes over to break up the fight.

"Well," Steve says as he pulls the dry-erase markers from Tony's and Bruce's hands, "I figure we should strategize, because there's no way in hell that we're leaving this up to SHIELD."

Clint claps his applause, Tony wolf-whistles, and Thor says "here, here."

"So," Steve grabs the eraser. Clint's list from over a week ago is still there, as well as a bunch of equations, tic-tac-toe boards, a game of hangman, and a fairly nice drawing of the Hulk dancing under a disco ball. He's even wearing sunglasses. Steve looks at it appreciatively before turning to Bruce and raising an eyebrow.

"Darcy Lewis," Bruce explains, blushing slightly."Jane's assistant. She's going to be the death of us all."

Steve snorts and erases around it, leaving nothing but the title of Clint's list, "REASONS WHY COULSON ISN'T DEAD," and the Hulk drawing. "Okay," Steve says, "suggestions," and starts writing:

_REASONS WHY COULSON ISN'T DEAD_

_\- The scepter revived him._

_-Loki_

_-Amora_

"What if he's just reanimated?" Bruce asks.

 _Reanimation_ , Steve writes on the board. Clint's heart sinks a little.

"Perhaps Loki or Amora plan on using his knowledge as a SHIELD agent," Thor adds.

"It could be accidental," Natasha considers, "Amora might not have known that using the spear would revive him. It's likely that she still doesn't know what she did." Steve starts writing again.

_\- Use him for intel._

_\- Accident_

"Whatever it is, it's obvious he's under the tesseract's control," Tony says. "Jarvis, can you hack SHIELD and give us the scans on Barton's gamma levels before, during, and after Loki?"

"It would be a pleasure," Jarvis replies.

"Hold on a sec,” Clint says, sitting up straight. "Gamma levels?"

"The tesseract gives off gamma radiation," Tony explains. “That's why Bruce was called in, supposedly. When we were trying to track it, we realized that, if one of Loki’s minions stayed in one place long enough, we could read small amounts on them and trace their location. It spiked when you were under control, but now you're clean, except for trace amounts."

"Trace amounts?" Clint says in disbelief. "Of gamma radiation? On me? And no one thought to tell me?"

"Trace amounts," Bruce says levelly. “It’s nothing that can hurt you. Trust me." Clint raises an eyebrow, but takes Bruce’s word for it.

Steve turns around and begins writing on the board again, starting a new list on the other side in blue ink.

_WAYS TO FIND COULSON_

_\- Gamma radiation._

Natasha gets up from her chair and grabs the red marker, writing QUESTIONS in the middle of the board, between the two lists.

"Why," she says, tapping her marker on the board. "Why Coulson?"

"Who – or what – is controlling him?" Clint adds. “He wouldn’t run away like that.”

"What does he want?" Tony says. "Is it world domination? Or is it brains to munch on, like any good zombie?”

"Steve," Bruce says, half raising his hand like he's in a classroom, "could you please add 'track habitual places' to your list?" Steve writes quickly to keep up with their brainstorming.

"How could Loki do this?" Thor wonders. "He's in captivity by the All-Father; he is powerless. Why would Amora do this? Why would she help him, if he is behind it all?"

"What is the tesseract, anyways?" Steve turns to Thor. "Is it just an energy source?"

"I am not certain," Thor shrugs, "Odin left it on Midgard long ago. I do not believe it was intended just as a source of energy, but that is what you humans have used it for primarily. There are legends and lore," he says thoughtfully. “Tales of a great and powerful—“

“Yeah, we know, it’s the power of the gods,” Clint sighed. “Enough to provoke and then fuel an intergalactic war.”

"Right," Steve says, rolling the full whiteboard around so they can write on the other side, “If we're all finished, I think –" he stops.

On the other side of the whiteboard is a gigantic cartoon purple heart, with  "TONY" and "BRUCE" written inside it in giant letters, and an arrow piercing it. “SCIENCE BROS 4LYFE” is written in pink cursive underneath that.

They all turn to look at Tony, who looks vaguely amused, and Bruce, who has turned bright red.

"Darcy," he chokes, "oh, god."

"She's my favorite," Clint snorts as Steve erases it. He begins to write again, this time listing tasks and circling them.

"Bruce," Steve says as he writes _TRACE COULSON_ on the board, "I'm going to assume that you're up for the job of tracing gamma signatures, if Tony can get that info?" Bruce nods, and Steve writes _Gamma - Bruce_ and circles it.

"The information has been uploaded to Mr. Stark's personal server, Dr. Banner," Jarvis adds helpfully. Clint flinches a little, startled by the voice. He’ll never get used to the AI.

"I'll scout out and track his old haunts," Natasha offers. Steve adds _Locations - Natasha_ to the board.

"What about Amora?" he turns from the whiteboard to ask.

"If she's still on Earth, I can try to track the scepter while I'm looking at tracing gamma radiation," Bruce says as he puts on his glasses and begins to bring up data on his StarkPad. Steve writes _FIND AMORA_ in large letters and draws a line from Bruce's name to it. "She could be offworld, and we don’t have access to all of the SHIELD servers and instruments as before, but I’ll find her if she’s here."

"And Iron Man is going to be on her when he does," Tony nods. Steve catches up with his chart and then pauses, glancing awkwardly back.

Clint's heart sinks as he writes _LOKI_ on the board.

"Thor.” Steve's voice is as kind as he’ll allow. "Is there any way we can speak to Loki?"

"There is no guarantee that he will cooperate," Thor replies. "He has refused to say a word since I brought him before the All-Father."

"Then you and I should go to Asgard,” Steve says. “There, we can –“

"Hey, what about me?" Clint interrupts. He bites the inside of his lip. "Can't miss out on the fun, can I?"

Steve and Natasha exchange a quick glance, the same loaded look and nod he’d seen them exchange after he’d shaken off Loki’s control on the Helicarrier. It hurts that Steve still doesn’t trust him, not even after all they’ve done, but Clint can’t bring himself to speak out, to blame him for it.

The moment passes, and Steve turns back to the board and writes _Thor, Steve, Clint_ underneath Loki’s name on the whiteboard. The marker squeaks as he crosses the T in Clint’s name.

When Steve is finished, he caps the marker with a click, and steps back to let them all see it. They stare at the map of names and tasks for a long moment, their great conspiracy. It isn't much, but it's all they've got.

"Wait," Natasha says, sliding from her seat. She picks up a marker and writes _CONTAINMENT_ and _SHIELD LIASION_ in the middle of the board, below all of their other plans. "We're going to need somewhere to keep Coulson that's secure," she nods at Tony, and then looks to the rest of them. "And we're going to need to coordinate with SHIELD. Even if they're using more forceful methods than us, we'll have to exchange information if we want to keep up." She casts a silencing look at Tony, who has his mouth half open. "We can't keep hacking them, you know. You can’t hack everything."

Steve is about to say something, probably by means of a speech to inspire leadership and cooperation, when the door to the workshop opens and Darcy and Jane come stumbling in, clutching lattes and laughing over something.

"I'm sorry," Jane starts, stepping back. "We didn't mean to interrupt, I just need to grab some of my data–" But Darcy ignores Jane’s awkward courtesy and strides right into the lab.

"Hey!" she protests, "you erased Disco Hulk!" Wordlessly, Steve flips the board around to show her Disco Hulk, still intact.

"Thanks, babe," Darcy says, winking at Steve before passing Bruce on her way to follow Jane to her workstation. "Bruce,” she says brightly, II brought you a Chai Latte.” She smiles as she sets the cup down in front of him.

"Th-thanks," he stutters, half-smiling at her.

"Okay," Steve says, trying not to make it obvious that he's half-staring at them. Clint snickers behind his hand. "Regroup tomorrow?" They all scramble to leave the workshop.

"Goddamn," Clint hears Darcy mutter to Jane as he's the last to leave, "how did we get so lucky when it comes to hot co-workers?" He makes sure she hears him laughing.

*

Things do not go as planned.

"Doctor Doom?" Iron Man laughs at the armored man in midair. His green cloak floats out from behind him menacingly. "What are you doing on our turf? Aren't you, like, Reed Richards' boyfriend or something?"

It’s the third attack this week, the third day wasted fighting some douche with a power fetish instead of searching for Coulson. Needless to say, the fight on that front isn’t going too well, either.

Doom shakes Clint out of his thoughts with a bolt of mystical energy magic (or whatever, Clint has no idea) that Tony barely dodges before it flies behind him. Clint, who is behind Iron Man, ducks.

"You will pay for your insolence! Doom does not forgive!" Doom yells, his voice echoing over the rooftops.

"Less sass, more kicking ass," Clint mutters through the comms.

"You can talk."

Iron Man flies towards Doom, firing his repulsors and blocking Clint's shots.

"Come on, I got the perfect arrow for this!" He mutters.

"Don’t get your panties in a bunch," Tony replies as he dodges another of Doom's mystical attacks. "Besides, the others should be here any moment." Finally, Tony moves out of the way enough for Clint to get a good explosive arrow in. It sticks to Doom's leg, but he reaches down, pulls it off, and throws it at Tony. It explodes.

"Oh, shit," Clint yells from his rooftop corner. He can't see anything for the think dark smoke cloud. "Tony? You okay?"

"Goddamn it, isn't he the Fuck-tastic Four's problem?" Tony swears from inside the suit. Clint can see him now, but he's losing altitude. "Shit shit shit," Tony mutters as he is unable to stay upright. "Fuck, if I don't make it out of this, tell Bruce it wasn't Thor who ate the last of his ice cream."

Suddenly, Doom is upon Clint, shooting at him and forcing him to run across the roof, firing arrows and dodging his energy bolts. Clint hits him a few times with EMP arrows, but they don't make a difference.

"HULK SMASH!"

Clint cheers triumphantly as the rest of the Avengers appear – the Hulk via jumping, Natasha and Steve in a SHIELD helicopter, and Thor with his hammer – armed and ready to face Doctor Doom. The Hulk never gets a chance to smash, however, because Thor calls up a bolt of lightning to take Doom from the skies.

Instead of falling to the ground, Doom explodes. Clint ducks to the floor of the roof and covers his head, crying out in pain as a few metal bits of Doom fly against him.

"What the hell was that?" Clint says, standing up once he's sure he's safe. He does a quick once over of himself – they're more than scratches, but he'll live – before going to check the remains of Doctor Doom. Steve, Natasha, Thor, and Tony are already standing beside it. The Hulk is standing at the edge of the roof, talking to someone yelling out of the SHIELD helicopter that's still there. Okay then.

"He should be a turkey," Tony comments as he analyzes the wreckage, his helmet up and face exposed. "This is a robot."

"Why would Doom have a robot that looks like him?" Steve asks as he pulls off his cowl, looking disappointed to have missed the fight. Tony and Clint had been the only ones actually at the Tower when the call had come in.

"Someone could call Reed Richards and ask," Tony suggests with a mischievous grin, "Except, let's not. Tell me, Cap, did you ever get past season 3 of Buffy?"

"I've never heard anything about there being fake Doom or Doom impostors," Clint says, "Have you heard anything about that, Tasha?"

"No," she shakes her head, eyeing his bleeding arms. He holds her gaze, daring her to say anything about it. It does sting.

"Who is this Doctor Doom?" Thor booms, peering down at the mess of wires and smoking metal parts.

"He's the ruler of the country of Latveria. Very evil. Possibly having lots of weird kinky hatesex with his arch-enemy, Reed Richards, who is a d–"

"Tony, be nice," Steve frowns.

"Do-do head," Tony finishes. "Have you met the Fantastic Four, by any chance? Because–"

"Hey, guys," a voice comes through their comms that takes Clint a moment to recognize.

"Lady Darcy?" Thor asks, bringing his hand up to the comm in his ear in surprise. He's still getting used to it.

Clint looks up to the SHIELD helicopter, which has somehow convinced the Hulk to sit down on the edge of the roof with his arms crossed sulkily. Sure enough, when he looks up Darcy is in the helicopter, wearing a satisfied look, headset, and SHIELD uniform.

"Yo," she replies, sending them a peace sign, "Sorry, Sitwell 's busy, so Fury sent me to liaison – anyways, there's, uh, a situation a few blocks over. Doctor Dooms. Plural." She gives them the coordinates. "There's some kind of parade going on, I suggest you guys hurry." The helicopter lets down a rope from its open doors and Darcy yells something at the Hulk.

"Thor, Br – the Hulk is following you," she says. Thor nods and spins Mjolnir over his head to follow Darcy's directions.

"We'd better go," Natasha urges. “It’s not going to be easy to take so many down at once.”

"Tony, do you think you can figure out an easier way to beat these guys from the wreckage?" Steve asks.

"Not right now," Tony shrugs, "Darcy, can you get a squad here to collect this stuff, have it delivered to the tower?"

"That's Agent Darcy to you," she says. Tony laughs and puts his helmet back up.

"Come on, Cap," he says, holding his arms open. "It'll be fun, I promise." Steve pulls his cowl back on. He hesitates. To Clint's surprise, he steps forward, latching an arm around Tony's waist. Iron Man blasts off.

"Let's go," Darcy says to the pilot when they're up in the helicopter with her, and they make their way through the skies and to the rest of the Doom robots.

By the time they get there, Thor has already struck three with his lightning, the Hulk has smashed four, and Tony and Steve are fighting one of the remaining four on the ground. Darcy commands the pilot to set the helicopter down and they all scamper out, guns blazing and arrows ready to fire. The street is still crowded with trapped people, all decked out for some kind of parade, but Clint barely has time to look around before they're darting towards where the remaining Doom robots have trashed a parade float.

"When did you learn to do all this?" Clint asks in disbelief as Darcy begins firing at one of the Dooms that has started blasting at them.

"It's been, like, a year since Puente Antiguo," she replies, shooting it in the fake head. "C'mon, dude, keep up. They rushed to finish my training after the Battle."

"Nice shot," he says appreciatively, a real compliment from him, and then shoots an EMP arrow right in the eye socket. The robot shorts out and slows long enough for Iron Man to appear and rip an arm off.

"There's one more," Natasha says, sprinting over to the last robot, which is firing upon the crowd of the parade.

"Got it!" Tony says over the comms, and Iron Man flies for it, tackling it to the ground and ripping off its head.

"Take that, you fucking Doombot!" he yells triumphantly, holding its head up to the skies.

"Tony," Steve mutters, "uh, Tony–"

"What?"

Iron Man turns to look around and realizes that he's right in front of the news cameras that were originally there to cover the parade.

"Shit," Darcy says. She holsters her gun and pinches the bridge of her nose. "Boss is gonna kill me, oh god, is that–"

"We crashed Pride," Clint says, covering his mouth with a hand. “Well. Shit.”

Darcy looks as though she’s about to cry. “The media is going to hate us for this,” she groans. “We should get out of here.”

"I have an idea," Steve says brightly. He fixes his cowl, straightens up, and goes over to the police who have gathered.

"What is he–?" Clint asks, but he returns a few minutes later with some brooms.

"Hulk, Thor," Steve says, "Can you pick up the big pieces of the ruined float and put it in the big dump truck that the police have over there? Tony, you and I handle the Doombot pieces, and they’ll ship them back to your workshop. Clint, Natasha, can you make sure no one's hurt?"

"Aye-aye, Captain," Tony salutes, flicking down the faceplate of his armor.

"Damage control," Darcy breathes in and out, "Captain America. Wow.”

“Careful,” Clint says, “you’ll make Hulk jealous.”

Within minutes they've pretty much cleaned up the street. No one is hurt, and the half of the parade that hasn't passed down the street is hesitantly edging their way to the six Avengers.

"Would you like to join the parade?" someone asks, and suddenly people are cheering and shouting.

"Oh, what the hell," Tony says, jumping onto an undamaged float. “Come on, guys,” he says.

“We should be looking for Coulson,” Clint grumbles as he sits on the float next to Steve.

Natasha sits on his other side, nudging her thigh against his, and smiles encouragingly at Clint.

“We’ll find him,” she reassures him. “Come on. This is the longest you’ve been with the team without bringing Coulson up.”

“Yeah, and for all we know, he could be in the crowd, watching us,” Clint mutters.

“Clint,” Natasha says, voice hardening. “As important as that is, you can’t let it take over your life. We’ll find him, but it’s going to take time.”

“We don’t _have_ time, Natasha,” Clint hisses.

“You certainly had time to mope around for the past few weeks,” Natasha says coolly.

Clint opens his mouth to bite back at her, but he’s interrupted by Bruce as he changes back from the Hulk.

“Does anyone have pants?” Bruce asks in a tired voice, standing there in the tattered remains of his jeans until a parade-goer throws him their own pants.

“Thanks,” Bruce yells back weakly. He sits in the space Natasha makes between her and Clint without a second thought.

Clint clenches his fists as the parade begins again, carrying them down the road, and ignores the itching need under his skin to _do something._

*

Clint rolls over restlessly in bed, trying to get to sleep. He can't relax, not when Coulson is out there somewhere. He could be anywhere, doing anything. It doesn't matter, though, Clint tells himself, because Coulson is _alive._

He shrugs on a pair of jeans and a jacket and closes the door to his room softly behind him. It's late, past midnight, but he's definitely not going to get to sleep tonight. He descends in the private elevator and makes his way out through Tony's private garage, taking his motorcycle.

The air is brisk as he travels down the familiar roads, cutting around late night traffic until he stops at the curb of a familiar apartment building.

He’s been here before this late at night; he’d placed his helmet in his lap and stared up, searching for the right window, the right light. Sometimes he’d park and head inside, swinging his keys and smiling to himself. Sometimes he’d speed away and let the darkness swallow him up, his heart beating fast in his chest.

Tonight, he turns off the engine, leaves his helmet on the seat, and steps onto the sidewalk. There is no light in the window tonight.

Clint has only been inside the building a handful of times, but he knows the way up to the third floor by heart. He isn't sure what's in the apartment now, but the key he has in his jacket pocket (he's never used it before) works in the lock. A glance inside tells him that no one has moved in – no, Coulson has been dead for weeks and the apartment is still filled with his belongings.

Clint steps inside cautiously and closes the door behind him. He knows he won't find Coulson here. That would be stupid. But that's not what he's looking for tonight.

There are boxes on the floor, boxes piled and half filled with Coulson's stuff. The lights are on, like someone forgot to turn them off on their way out. Clint imagines that whatever SHIELD agents that had been assigned to search and pack up his belongings have been busy tracking him down over the past week. Coulson would have his rent and other bills automatically drawn from an account, anyways. He wasn't home often.

Clint remembers the framed posters on the wall; vintage and authentic Captain America, Star Wars, and James Bond. They're sitting on the floor now, covered with dust and leaning against a box. The living room and kitchen are mostly packed up, but as he makes his way past the bathroom and to the bedroom, it's obvious that they haven't gotten here yet. He opens the door and steps inside, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark. He doesn't want to turn on the lights and attract undue attention.

Although he’s been in the apartment many times, Clint has only ever been in here once, after a bar fight. Coulson snapped his shoulder back into place and stitched up the wound where the jerk's switchblade had sliced through skin, all while lecturing him.

_"How do you always find trouble?” Coulson sighed as he stitched up the wound on Clint's arm. "I swear, you do it on purpose."_

_"It just finds me," Clint replied in a tired voice. Coulson squinted down at his wound in the poor light of the room, and unthinkingly braced his hand on Clint's leg._

_"Yeah, well, another time and it will be_ finding _you in Fury's office with a probation."_

_Clint winced as Coulson tugged at the needle, making a hissing noise through his teeth. Coulson started, moving his hand._

_"Just breathe," Coulson said, moving his hand to Clint's left shoulder. “If  you could go to Medical, this would be less painful."_

_"If you would hurry the fuck up, it would be less painful," he replied through gritted teeth. Coulson responded with a stony, disappointed silence._

_"I'm done," he said, after some time had passed. Coulson hesitated before moving away to pack up his emergency medical supplies. Clint didn't remember Coulson wrapping the wound on gauze, but he wasn't exactly sober or even aware of much past the warmth of the hands on his arm._

_"Right," Clint tried to stand up, but he felt the world spin around him, his knees weakening, and he found himself back on the bed. "Fuck. I'll call a cab," he swore as he tried to stand up again. He was still half drunk, so it was easy for Coulson to place two sturdy hands on his bare shoulders and push him back onto the bed. His hands were warm, almost hot against Clint's cold skin._

_"No," Coulson shook his head. "You're staying here tonight."_

_"I'll sleep on the couch–"_

_"No. Your shoulder–"_

_"I don't want to take your bed," Clint mumbled, trying to use Coulson as a crutch to help him get to his feet._

_"I'll just be in the other room," Coulson said quickly, finally stepping away from Clint and towards the door. "Good – goodnight."_

_"Coulson," Clint started. The door clicked shut just as Clint whispered, "Stay."_

Clint shivers now, remembering the look on Coulson's face the next morning when he handed Clint a mug of black coffee. Controlled. Closed off. Careful. He hadn't gone to Coulson's place after that for some of the worse fights, although Natasha hadn't always been as obliging when he showed up drunk at her door.

As he looks around the bedroom, he wonders where Coulson is now, where he's spending the night. It's not cold, it's just the beginning of summer, but it's got to be hard on the streets. He wonders if Coulson has been stealing, robbing, mugging... He knows he wouldn't have batted an eyelid if it were him under Loki’s control. Clint shivers and tries not to think of how useful Coulson's particular skills are to criminals.

Clint sits on Coulson’s precisely made bed and opens the drawer of the nightstand, using the flashlight he'd brought to rummage through it until he finds the button at the back. With a click, the fake bottom of the drawer opens. Clint reaches down to pull out the heavy envelope inside and closes the drawer.

The paper rips easily in his hands. He turns the manila envelope upside down over the bed. Out of it falls three long white envelopes and a small ring box that he knows holds Coulson's old wedding ring. Clint hesitates, shining the flashlight into the envelope even though he knows there isn't anything else. He sets the ring box on top of the nightstand.

Next is the envelopes. One is labeled _N_ , for Natasha. He can tell from pinching it that there are three pieces of paper inside, and something else  – A card? A photo? He tries not think about it too much.

Clint sets it down on the nightstand and picks up the next one, which is the heaviest. The SHIELD logo is stamped across the front. That one is for Fury. Unlike Natasha's, Clint wonders what's inside of it. He can't imagine Coulson keeping anything from Fury, much less keeping secrets at all, but he always had done things to protect his team. Clint wonders how much in there is instructions for what to do with him and Natasha. He wonders if any of it is about the Avengers. When the flashlight held up to the envelope reveals that it's too thick to see through, he sets it on top of Natasha's and turns to the final item on the bed.

His envelope is the thinnest and lightest by far. There's only a single sheet of paper inside, thin paper, nothing printed off a computer. Handwritten, then. He turns the envelope over in his hands and stares at the _C_ written in the center. He wonders why Coulson didn’t use both of his initials. He wonders why Coulson didn’t just write ‘Barton.’

He lays back on the bed and holds the envelope up. He could put the flashlight up to it and try to read through it, but he knows the paper is too thick, and Coulson too careful. He could open it, he thinks. Even if Coulson isn't really dead. He could read it and pretend like he found and read it weeks ago, when he thought Coulson was really dead.

 _I’d know,_ Clint thinks. _That’s all that matters._

On an impulse, he reaches for one of the pillows on the bed and hesitantly presses his face into it. It still smells like Coulson if he presses his face into it deeply enough; his knuckles tighten in the pillowcase and Clint closes his eyes for a moment.

When he opens them, it's lighter in the room. After a moment, he realizes that the walls are wrong, the window too big, and the light red and blue from a neon sign across the street. Another motel room. When Clint turns over in the bed, he realizes that he's not alone.

"Coulson?" he mutters. He's just as Clint remembers him, face closed and peaceful in sleep. Clint wonders why the dreams haven't stopped now that he knows Coulson is alive. He moves his hand up to touch Coulson's cheek.

When Coulson's eyes open, Clint startles. They're blue: bright, piercing blue. Clint looks into them without thinking and remembers the tesseract, remembers Loki, remembers being under the pressure and control and having it all taken away. He can't breathe, can't think, and he feels it pressing back down on him, the fear and guilt sitting on his chest and choking his breaths.

"It's okay," Coulson murmurs, stroking his shoulder gently, drawing close to Clint, "it's okay, you're safe. You're okay."

"God," Clint moans, "why are you here?" Coulson stiffens beside him.

"I could ask you the same question," he says as he draws back. "I didn't ask for this."

"What the fuck are you, the Cheshire cat?" Clint lets out a shaky, slow breath. “God, you're so cryptic."

Coulson laughs, a shallow and hollow sound that echoes in his chest. “Yeah, and you? You’ve always been crystal clear, Barton."

"I miss you," Clint says suddenly, feeling his chest tighten in a different way as he looks through the bright blue of Coulson's eyes. He thinks he can see the grey underneath, but it might just be his imagination.

"I miss you so bad," he mutters, bringing his hand up again to touch. Coulson grabs it and holds it there, looking from Clint's hand to his eyes.

"When they told me you'd been compromised, I thought my life was over," Coulson says. Clint doesn't move an inch. "I thought yours was."

"I'm alive," he replies softly, "and I'm so glad–" Coulson leans forward to kiss him. Clint isn't surprised, he kisses back, lets Coulson lead, lets the dream swell around him like it always does.

"I'm glad, too," Coulson whispers against his mouth.

 "I thought you were dead," Clint says, out of some obligation. He has to apologize, he has to say it, because even if it isn’t real, it might be his only chance. "We only just found out about Amora and the staff,” he says. “I’m sorry. I will find you, I promise, I –“

"What?" Coulson says, drawing back suddenly. Clint feels the swooping dread in his chest, the telltale signs that his dream is turning into a nightmare. He sits up in the bed as Coulson tilts his head at him. "Barton?" he asks, "what the – Barton?"

"Sir?" Clint asks, feeling his chest tighten once more.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Natasha snaps, breaking Clint out of his dreams.

"What?" he says groggily, sitting up with raised fists, ready to defend himself before he realizes it's just Natasha, her gun held safely towards the floor. "Nat? What’re you doing here?"

"I'm supposed to be tracking Coulson's haunts, remember?" she says. “Didn't you think someone would notice if unauthorized personnel made their way into a agent's apartment? Especially if he’s on a watch list."

Clint swears. "I didn't think of that," he mutters, moving aside on the bed to let Natasha sit down. His envelope crackles underneath her and he grabs it. Natasha reacts instantly by snatching it out of his hand.

"What's this?" she says, holding it up to the light. When she sees the inked _C_ on it, her eyes widen. "You’ve just now opened your letter?” she asks incredulously.

“I didn’t open it,” Clint protests. “I just…here, he wrote you one, too,” he replies, handing Natasha her own letter. "And Fury, but  that's just SHIELD stuff." Natasha looks from her envelope to his. “You knew, too?” he asks her.

"Of course,” she says with a sigh. “He just…didn’t tell me where to find them, only to make sure that you read yours. Looks like I failed.” Natasha presses her lips together in a scowl. “If you’ve known it was here all this time, why wait? Why tonight? Why didn’t you come before?”

Clint bristles under her skepticism, but shrugs. "I don't know. My last chance to see what he said?"

"Bullshit."

"It was stupid, " he sighs, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he talks, tired and slow. "If I came before tonight, it would be like accepting that he was dead, and I knew he wasn't. I couldn't read it, couldn't tell myself he was alive and still go and read his damn letter." Clint runs a hand through his hair. "It's stupid, but I was right, I guess."

She hands him back his envelope. "Why haven't you read it, then?" she asks. He notices that her own letter is now clutched tightly in her hand.

"Fell asleep," he says. "I was thinking…it's been a long day. It's a comfortable bed. Had a weird dream."

"Why don't you read it now, then?" she asks. He turns the envelope over in his hands a few times. It's completely sealed shut, even the corners. "That's what you came for, isn't it?"

Clint takes awhile in answering as he plays with the envelope. "Remember Lima?"

"Ohio, Peru, or Argentina?" she asks, although she should know.

"Peru," he snorts humorlessly. "You thought I died in the explosion." She tilts her head to the side, considering.

"Coulson didn't," she remembers. "He trusted you. He trusted that you got out of there."

"He was wrong," Clint shakes his head, "he trusted me, a thousand times he trusted me." Lima, Madrid, Santa Cruz, Beirut, Columbus, Nairobi… So many times that Coulson had trusted him to a fault. Clint grips the envelope tightly in his hand, letting the paper wrinkle underneath his touch. "He doesn't deserve," he gestures outward, "this."

"It's not your fault, Clint. He trusted you, and he knew he was right, whether you like it or not." She taps the letter with one red fingernail. "He wanted you to read this if something ever happened to him. He wanted you to know things he felt he couldn’t tell you during his life."

"But why would you encourage me to read it?" Clint asks, turning to her with a questioning look in his eyes. “You know he's not dead as well as I do. He's _alive_. It would be a violation of trust." She shrugs. Clint can tell that she's lying, that she knows more than she's letting on. "Do you want to see what's inside?"

"Oh, I already know," she replies cryptically. "It's up to you. I'll just be in the other room. I have a call to make about a certain idiot breaking and entering." Natasha gets up, sets her envelope on the nightstand, and leaves him alone in the room. She closes the door halfway.

Clint lays back again and stares at the envelope. He knows he should take this chance to read it, but he can't. Not when Coulson is alive. Not when it might change everything.

Clint sits up in the bed and grabs the manila envelope. He takes the ringbox and the other two envelopes and slides them in. He can't reseal the large envelope, but he opens the drawer and the secret compartment once more to stow it and its contents away.

Before he leaves, Clint tucks his envelope into the inner pocket of his jacket. Just in case.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s morning when Clint rolls over in his bed at the Tower and checks the clock on his wall. It's some kind of modern art clock, and he squints at it for 10 seconds (well, relatively, since the damn clock doesn't have a second hand) before he realizes that he has no idea how to read it.

"Jarvis," he says sleepily, "what time is it?" It's a little creepy that Jarvis is always "watching," but he's getting used to it. It helps, and doesn't help, that Jarvis is essentially a voice.

"It is 9:14 am, Tuesday the 26th of April," Jarvis supplies. "You have a message from Dr. Banner requesting your presence in the lab after you have breakfast."

Clint groans into his pillow, then says "Thank you, Jarvis," politely afterwards, just in case the AI can hold a grudge. He takes his time in the shower and drops by the kitchen to steal two of Thor's least favorite kind of poptarts.

Natasha is sitting at the kitchen table, painting her nails and chatting with a tired looking Darcy, who looks equally terrified and enamored as Natasha explains the most efficient method of defending against an attacker. Their conversation about SHIELD business breaks off as Clint steps into the kitchen.

"Late night?" Darcy says sympathetically when Clint grabs a giant mug filled with coffee from the over-complex coffee maker and takes a large gulp. Thor seems to have exhausted his supply of toaster pastries, so Clint rummages around in the fridge and pulls out a few eggs (organic and expensive, because this is Stark's kitchen).

"Yeah," Clint can't help but glance at Natasha, who holds his gaze for a second as he cracks the eggs into a bowl.

"Ah," Darcy says, eyes lighting up as she looks between them. "So–"

"Why does _everyone_ think we're a couple?" Clint protests, still a little groggy from waking up. He whips  the whisk around a little too forcefully. "I'm just not a morning person."

"God, one of you has to be actually, really, honestly be gay," Darcy mutters, and then turns bright red, "and, wow, I totally just said that out loud, didn't I? Whatever, Thor has more than accounted for the heterosexuality on your team." She takes a large drink from her thermos, probably to stop from babbling any more.

“You’ve never seen him with Loki, have you?” Natasha laughs. Darcy chokes on her coffee.

"It's too early for this," Clint mutters while Darcy bursts into laughter.

Clint half-listens to their jokes as he scrambles his eggs and sticks a few pieces of bread into the toaster. Unfortunately, the second he sits down at the table, Natasha gets to her feet.

"Where are you off to in a hurry?" he says as she flicks through some messages on her phone. "Bit early for a hot date, isn't it?"

Natasha flicks him off and tucks her phone into her pocket.

"Scouting out some leads," she says carefully, "robberies and the like, some suspects who fit Coulson’s description." Clint nods.

“What are you doing today?” Natasha asks carefully.

“Bruce wants to see me,” Clint shrugs, “and Steve wants to talk diplomacy for tomorrow. Then, I thought I’d take a look at the security footage SHIELD sent over and see what I can find. Let me know if you find anything?” he asks hopefully.

"I'll keep you posted," Natasha replies in a softer voice, before leaving him to the sharks – that is, Darcy Lewis.

"Please tell me you tapped that," she says dreamily after Natasha is long gone. Clint chokes on a piece of scrambled egg.

"Take a sip of your coffee and think about what you've just said." She does, and blanches.

"She offered to 'show me some moves,'" Darcy moans, "it sounded like something out of a bad porno."

"Self-defense and sex are not things that Natasha mixes," Clint warns, "and they are not things you want to mix with her. Ever." Darcy shrugs, and Clint stares pointedly down at his toast while she plays around on her phone. "Don't you have to go in to SHIELD?" he prompts, wondering if she'll get the hint. He's tired, okay? He deserves a little silence over his breakfast.

"I'm on Jane Duty today," she explains, "and Thor is also on Jane Duty today, back in the apartment we share."

"Ah." He nods sympathetically.

"I thought being sexiled would end after college," she sighs, "but at least they're paying me to sit here."

Against his better judgment, Clint perks up a little. "So how did you get hired by SHIELD?" he asks curiously. Darcy shrugs.

"After my internship with Jane, I graduated, moved to a beautifully crappy over-expensive apartment here, and got laid off in about a month."

"Ouch," he says around a mouthful of toast.

"I had a hundred bucks in my bank account and a warning that if I was caught carrying my taser, I'd get a Class A misdemeanor," she sighs.

"And you joined SHIELD so you could get your concealed carry?" Clint raises an eyebrow.

"No, I joined because Sunglasses knocked on my door and asked me if I wanted a job fighting crime and the forces of evil."

"And you said yes?" He asks in disbelief. "He didn't even wear them that often –"

"Not until the fifth time. I asked him if they'd pay off my college loans."

Clint laughs. "You're tough,” he smiles.

"You can talk!" she shoots back. “you're the one who took three bullets before you gave in." Clint frowns as Darcy smiles smugly at him.

"How do you know that?" he asks, confused.

"Sunglasses, duh,” she says. “We hung out and got doughnuts while he tried to convince me. I happened to ask who added the playlist 'Get Some Musical Taste' to my iPod." Clint looks down at his hands, thinking.

"Coulson told you about how he recruited me?" he says in a low voice. Darcy blanches.

"Oh, shit, was he not supposed to? Was that confidential or something?"

"No," Clint shakes his head and looks sheepishly up at Darcy. "He…talked about me?"

Darcy gapes at him in disbelief, "Only, like, all the time. Ask Pepper, they – _oh my god_ , no way!" she breathes. Clint groans.

"No," he protests, "he was my _handler_ , Darcy. My S.O. Okay?"

"STARK, YOU OWE ME TEN BUCKS," Darcy shouts down the hallway to the longue.

Clint hears a faint "GODDAMN IT" echo back down to them, followed by the tinkling sound of Pepper's laughter.

"Why is my love life the subject of a betting pool?" he mutters into his cup of coffee in defeat.

"Because, babe," Darcy reaches forward to ruffle his hair, "you're so freaking ambiguous."

Clint dodges her and gets up to put his plate in the sink.

"Jarvis, is Bruce free right now?" he asks.

"Dr. Banner says you can head down whenever," Jarvis replies a few moments later. Clint nods.

"Hey, when you're in Asgard, will you take pictures for me?" she asks. Clint turns to see that she's propped herself up on the table by her elbows and is hanging over the edge of it with her chest thrust outwards, looking at him like a bird searching for prey.

"Uh, sure?" he replies, grabbing his coffee and turning to leave the kitchen and escape.

"Definitely gay," Darcy mutters.

"I can hear you," he calls back at her.

"I know, Hawkears," she replies, voice echoing down the hallway as Clint heads for the elevator. "Doesn't make it any less true."

On Clint’s way out of the elevator, he runs into Jane Foster, who’s holding an armful of printouts and standing inches from the door.

"Have you seen Darcy?" she asks, self-consciously running a hand through her hair.

"Kitchen," he replies, and then pauses, "I think someone gave her decaf by accident." Jane laughs awkwardly.

"Sorry, she isn't exactly a morning person," Jane says. "Or, shall we say, a 'before noon' person." Clint forces a chuckle as Jane gets into the elevator. The doors shut behind her, leaving him alone in the hallway outside of the lab.

Tony had given Clint a code to get in, but it takes a moment for him to remember it and type it into the pad on the door. He can see inside the windows to where Bruce and Tony have their lab/workshop set up. On the cleaner side, amongst counters and machines and computers, sits Bruce, a crinkle on his forehead as he scrolls through some readings on his computer.

As Clint approaches, he sees a human body brought up on a hologram, different areas lit up on it in vivd oranges and blues. It reminds him of a thermal imaging camera. Bruce peers through his glasses and manipulates the data of the image. Clint wonders when someone is actually going to tell him what kind of doctor Bruce actually is.

"Clint," Bruce looks up from his StarkPad as Clint approaches. He takes off his glasses.

"Dr. Banner," Clint nods curtly.

"If I can, ahh, borrow you for a moment," he says as he stands up, sending Clint a forced smile. "I just need to scan you, if that's okay."

"Scan me?" Clint raises an eyebrow skeptically. They already have a fix on the type of energy they’re looking for. They shouldn’t need to do any more tests on him.

"Yeah, to make sure we have enough data for –" Bruce stops and sighs, replacing the forced look on his face with a genuine frown. “I’m sorry,” he says, almost to himself. “I can’t do this.”

Clint crosses his arms. “Do what?” he asks tersely.

“They think you could be a possible threat,” Bruce says. “SHIELD wants me to scan you to see how much residual energy is still in your system. I told them I didn’t want to do it, but Fury…”

“Yeah,” Clint sighs. “He does that. No problem,” he says carefully, careful not to sound bitter. “What do you need me to do?”

Bruce pauses. "Are you sure?" he asks.

Clint nods.

"Stand here,” Bruce says, directing him to an X taped on the floor. He returns to the computer terminal to tap away at the keyboard. A light, one of Tony’s holographic scanners that still freak Clint out a little, tracks over his body. After a moment, Bruce claps his hands together and says they’re done.

"What's the prognosis, Doc?" he asks, joining Bruce in front of the holographic data projected over the table. Clint perches himself on top of a tall stool.

"You're clean, of course, the energy has dissipated at a healthy rate,” Bruce says. “There are a few trace amounts of gamma in your system, but nothing to worry about.”

“That’s good,” Clint says uncertainly. He doesn’t understand how magic can translate into science, but he’s heard Jane say that magic is just Asgardian science. After his firsthand experience with the tesseract, he isn’t so sure.

Bruce slides his glasses back on. “Thanks for letting me scan you,” he says. “I’m sorry about that.”

“If Fury wants –“

“It shouldn’t matter what Fury wants,” Bruce interrupts him. “We’re supposed to be a team, now. We’re supposed to trust each other. It was an insult to your intelligence to ask to scan you in the first place.”

"Thanks," Clint says faintly. "I appreciate it."

"Do you want to see our progress?" Bruce asks, bringing up a neon orange globe on the holographic display. He spreads his hands and zooms in on the United States. Little electric blue dots pop up on the map, some of them faint, or strong, or moving, and some of them stationary. There's a larger circle, like a hole, in one section, where Clint remembers Loki came through, burying an entire facility with him. Clint whistles.

"Impressive. Do you think you'll find him?" he asks. Bruce shrugs.

"I can't know for sure. The energy type may have mutated, now that Amora's in control of it. As for individuals, Coulson wasn’t giving off much of a signature at SHIELD,” Bruce says. “If he stays in one place for awhile, I may be able to find him. But he’s on the move, Clint. Amora is our best bet, really, as she has the spear. We’d be able to find that on a single sweep, but we haven’t, not yet.”

“Can’t you find more powerful equipment?” Clint asks. “You and Tony are geniuses.”

“It’s more difficult than it sounds,” Bruce says. “It would take a lot of power, and we’d have to write up an algorithm to track individual movements. As it is,” he pauses awkwardly, “well, I can’t even find myself on this thing.”

Clint blinks a few times. “I can see how it might be problematic if you could,” he says slowly.

Bruce catches Clint’s eye and nods in a silent thanks. Clint wonders if this is a dead end because of Banner’s conflict-of-interest. If they develop the tech they need to track Coulson, it could one day be used to track Bruce. The last thing anyone needs is to give the army the tech needed to track the Hulk in real-time.

“If Amora is here, we’ll find her,” Bruce says in an effort to comfort Clint. “It’s a small world.”

"But a big enough one for Coulson to hide in," Clint mutters. He looks down at his feet as they hang from the stool swings his legs back and forth while he listens to Bruce types into one of Tony’s weird keyboards. It's soothing, somehow, the sound of his rhythmic typing as he messes around with the data. It reminds him of the hours he'd spent napping on the couch in Coulson's office, listening to him type up reports when they weren't in the field.

"If you don't mind me asking," Bruce beings, but he stops hesitantly. He fiddles with his glasses more than he has in the past ten minutes, a telltale sign that he's nervous.

"Go ahead," Clint says, his curiosity getting the better of him. He's going to regret this, he just knows it.

"You and Coulson…" Bruce trails off. "Why do you care so much? About him?"

Yeah, Clint is definitely going to regret this. It's not like he hasn't been expecting someone to ask him this question sooner or later, but he just doesn't know how to answer it. He wants to answer Bruce, in return for all he did for Clint, but he’s so used to holding his cards close to his chest.

"He was my handler,” Clint begins slowly. “Nat's, too. He took care of us, our reports, our medical stuff. You heard what she said." Bruce nods, but he knows it isn't enough, he knows that he's not doing Coulson justice. "But he wasn't just that. He went…above and beyond his job. Yeah, he was my boss, but I always thought of him as, uh, a friend."

Bruce rubs at the back of his neck. "And you…were close?" Clint snorts at the question.

"He didn't see me as a part of the job," he answers, "but he didn't see me as anything more, either." Clint looks down at his hands and rubs at a callous, thinking of long nights spent in cars and planes, traveling back and forth for missions all over the world.

_"Are we there yet?" Clint yawned, kicking the lever on the passenger seat to lean it back. He sticks his feet up on the dash, hands folded behind his head._

_"Number one: feet down. Number two: be careful with the seat, or it's coming out of your already dangerously depleted paycheck. Number three: if you say that one more time, I will–"_

_"Tase me, yeah, I know," Clint muttered, taking his feet off the dashboard. "Jesus, Coulson. You'd think all of these relaxing road trips would loosen you up a little. It’s like a paid vacation."_

_Coulson ignored the teasing, as usual. At a loss, Clint began to fiddle with the radio dial._

_"I don't think we can get radio out here," Coulson said flatly. He gestured to the empty road in front of them._

_The radio was nothing but static, until a warped song made its way through the speakers. "– will be king."_

_Clint's smile widened._

_"And you, you will be queen," he sang along to the song._

_"Oh, no," Coulson groaned, running a hand over his face. "No. No."_

_"Though nothing will drive them away," he grinned as he turned the dial up as loudly as it would go._

_"This is like a scene in a bad movie," Coulson shouted over the music._

_"We can be heroes, just for one day."_

_"Do you ever stop?" he said, but Clint just laughed._

_"Come on," he said, reaching over to punch Coulson playfully on the shoulder. "You know you want to."_

_"I, I can remember. Standing, by the wall. And the guns, shot above our heads."_

_"I remember that too," Coulson sighed, "that's every day of our lives."_

_"And we kissed, as though nothing could fall."_

_"I don't remember that part,” Coulson frowned._

_Clint laughed, yelling on the top of his lungs, "And the shame was on the other side. Oh, we can beat them, forever and ever."_

_"Then we could be heroes," Coulson joined in finally, fighting to keep the smile away._

_"Just for one day._

_We can be heroes."_

"He was –" Clint's voice falters. He looks away. Bruce makes a small humming noise in the back of his throat, as though he's heard all he wanted to.

"You know," Clint starts again, and continues before his brain can catch up with his mouth, "I think that maybe you and Tony –"

"Hey, what are you doing down here?" Tony says, popping in though the door with a box of doughnuts. "Get out. No Girls Aloud, Adults Only, You Must Be This Tall To Enter the Lab, etcetera."

"Speak of the devil," Bruce mutters, and then shakes his head at Clint. While Tony is over on the other side of the room, setting the doughnuts down and grabbing one for himself, Bruce turns conspiratorially to Clint.

“Have you seen him and Steve?” he whispers in Clint’s direction.

"Oh, god, is Captain Freedom and Justice down here, too?" Tony says, looking around with mock fear.

Bruce quirks an eyebrow at Clint, as if to say "see?" and wags his finger at Tony. "Your nicknames are getting worse and worse, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, I don't see you making up any, Mr. Green Monster of Jealousy," Tony snaps back. "Oh, speaking of the Star Spangled Man With A Plan, he wants to see you about tomorrow. You guys are leaving in the afternoon.”

Clint jumps off the stool.

"Great,” he says, taking the excuse to leave the lab. "Hey, do you have a camera or something? I'm supposed to take pictures for Darcy." He swings around by the doughnuts before heading to the door.

"For Darcy?" Bruce says, looking up curiously. “Sure, I’d find one for you. There’s one around here somewhere.”

"Thanks," Clint says through a mouthful of glazed doughnut. He shuts the door to Tony and Bruce's good natured argument over the unauthorized loaning out of Stark property and goes upstairs to pack and look into the few leads he has on Coulson.

*

"I do love a man in uniform," Darcy says sideways to Clint.

They're leaning on the glass barrier on the balcony of Stark Tower, watching as Steve talks to the others. He and Clint are in full uniform; Fury had spewed something about "presentation" and their roles as ambassadors through a video feed earlier that day. He was on his best behavior as a representative of Earth, etc, etc, please don't start an intergalactic war. Clint had zoned out a little, just as he had when Steve went over diplomatic etiquette with him the day before.

 Over on Tony's helipad, Jane is in the process of setting up some equipment and talking to Thor and Tony about whether or not it's structurally safe to call up the Bifrost there in the first place.

It isn't Thor Darcy is staring at, however, but Steve, standing with his shield propped up against his legs. Darcy lets out a low whistle.

"Eh," he says noncommittally. Darcy's eyes widen as she turns to gesture at him. "That was noncommittal," he protests, "Bruce is right, you are going to be the death of us."

"Bruce said what?" Darcy blinks, "about me? I was mentioned? I was discussed? In Bruce's general vicinity?"

"Uh," Clint blinks a few times, "you know what? Let's go back to the uniform thing. I'm going to say no, because perving on my teammates is getting awkward."

"At least you're going to Asgard," Darcy sighs, "it's like hottie-ville up there. I wonder if it's something in the water."

"I am somewhat disturbed by the possible direction of this conversation and am going to go over there now," Clint says, pushing off from the balcony. Darcy sighs.

"Good luck without wi-fi, my friend," she salutes, "and good luck _with_ the hot demigods." He sticks his tongue out at her and goes over to join Bruce and Natasha.

"Was she flirting?" Natasha asks, "it's okay, it stops being disturbing after you get used to it."

"Flirting?" Bruce asks curiously. Natasha glances at Clint and winks. "Darcy doesn't – except with Steve, but everyone does because he's – she was flirting with you?" Clint hasn't heard Bruce this flustered out of a non-combat situation in a long time.

"She, uh, wanted to talk to you, I think," Clint says, taking Natasha's foot stomping on his as a hint. "See you in a few days?" Bruce holds out a hand for them to shake and goes over to join Darcy in watching the others over the balcony.

"This is either a great idea or a terrible one," Natasha says flatly. They watch the pair talk awkwardly for an amused moment, and then turn to see what progress Tony, Thor, and Jane have made. They look almost finished. Natasha turns to Clint with a serious look in her eyes.

"Be careful," she says softly. "Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?”

"I've got this, Tasha," he says, "don't worry."

"You know I never do."

"And, if you find him," Clint hesitates, "please. Just. Please." He sticks a hand into his pocket to feel that the envelope is still there, safe and sound and unopened.

She nods. "I know."

Finally, Jane finishes setting up her equipment and leaves the helipad to join the others on the balcony. Clint leans down to give Natasha a half-hug before he turns to join Steve and Thor in the middle of the circle.

"Stark," Steve calls just before Tony leaves the helipad. He sticks out a hand. "Hold down the fort, okay?"

Tony raises an eyebrow, but he takes Steve’s hand in his and pats him on the shoulder. “Go get ‘em, Cap,” he says cheerfully.

"Thor, are you ready?" Jane calls from the balcony.

"Yes," Thor replies. He raises his hammer and points it to the sky. "Heimdall?" he calls. Clint looks up to see a giant vortex of clouds and light descending from the sky and blanches at the thought of being inside that.

"Holy shit," he mutters. The realization of what he’s agreed to finally hits him as they are engulfed in the Bifrost.

Traveling on the Bifrost is the trippiest thing that Clint has ever done. He's flying through space – no, in a tunnel of vortex light that makes him wonder if Tom Baker's head is going to appear out of nowhere – quicker than he can even think. Before he knows it, Clint has left Tony's helipad behind, and is standing unsteadily on his feet on a long, golden platform attached to a multi-colored road.

Asgard, simply put, is very large.

"Holy shit," he says for the second time in a minute.

Thor had said that it was impressive, but that hadn't seemed like much coming from a guy who still got excited about infomercials. The road to Asgard, the platform he's standing on, sparkles and shines with all of the colors of the rainbow, leading up to a gold gate and the even more golden halls. Far below them is a sea, tossing and turning at a height that would make anyone else dizzy.

Clint looks over to see Steve utterly transfixed by the stars above and around them. They're scattered across the sky in patterns and colors that Clint doesn't even faintly recognize.

"Greetings, Heimdall," Thor says loudly and happily, shaking Clint from his thoughts. Heimdall is just as large and impressive as Clint had imagined him once he heard of the man who sees everything. ("So, like ceiling cat?" Tony commented when Thor explained. “Awkward. Hi Heimdall, what's up?") He has a huge sword, which he is currently pulling from a weird, giant platform. Clint turns around to see the portal at the end of a giant cone-shaped canon fade back to dormancy.

"Welcome back to Asgard," Heimdall replies, "the All-Father has sent horses for you and your guests."

"Thank you," Steve and Thor say. Clint nods belatedly and follows Thor down the sparkly road. It's really slippery.

"My apologies," Thor says once they are out of direct earshot of Hemidall, "we are still rebuilding the Bifrost. It is not yet returned to its former glory."

"That _wasn't_ it in all its glory?" Steve asks.

"Nay," Thor says, "but I promise, the halls of my father are truly glorious and worthy of such fine guests. I hope you know how to ride a horse," he adds as they come across the horses. It turns out they do, easily enough, even though the Asgardian horses are huge.

Clint keeps a scrutinizing eye on Thor as they mount. He seems different here, his posture straighter, his chest puffed out, his stride larger. Thor is friendly – _innocent_ , even – when he's a giant in the delicate world of Stark Tower, where everything he touches can break. Here in Asgard, he is very much something else.

"Hey, Cap," Clint yells as the horses gallop towards the giant golden gates that have opened for them and the blue skies beyond. "Ever played Mario Kart?"

"The Lady Darcy's references to Rainbow Road are quite appropriate, are they not?" Thor says cheerfully.

"I always fall off that one," Steve jokes. Clint laugh fades into the wind.

"Don't even say that," he counters.

*

The ceremony that they must follow in Asgard is as boring as hell, and Clint breaks it at least three times before they're even in the actual throne room. It's full of bowing and scraping and, what the hell, Asgard is weird. Warrior culture, Jane had said during her excited spiel. Okay, like that means anything to him.

"Come on, Clint, we're representing the entire Earth," Steve sighs as they wait to enter. "Be a little enthusiastic about it."

"I am," he protests, "I have finally found a society where a bow and arrow is normal tech, I'm pleased as punch." Steve sighs, but he doesn’t push it.

Before either of them speak again, the doors to the throne room open.

"Let's go," Steve whispers, straightening his posture and holding the simple, minimalistic black box in front of him. Thor joins them at the door and they begin the long walk down the carpet that unfurls down the large, golden room to Odin's throne.

The crowd is immense, filled with very large, very loud Asgardians that resemble something out of a renaissance faire.  Clint tries extremely hard not to make any untoward comments as they make their way to the throne.

"Greetings," Odin begins. He stomps his staff on the ground. The room instantly quiets. "Asgard welcomes you."

Clint tunes out for a few minutes as Odin gives some kind of speech about camaraderie and the uniting of two great worlds. He takes the chance to finally look around properly. The hall is gigantic and ornamental, from the carved golden pillars holding up the high ceilings, to the metallic inlaid floors. The crowd stirs restlessly as they watch the proceedings, and Clint eyes each of the people standing on the steps up to Odin's throne carefully. There are two on the left, and three on the right.

He recognizes four of them from New Mexico: Sif, who is tall, beautiful, and frighteningly able to crush Clint without even trying; Fandral, who he thinks looks like Gilderoy Lockhart and acts just like him; Volstagg, who looks like one of the dwarves from _Lord of the Rings_ and, according to Thor, can eat for hours; and Hogun, who definitely lives up to the strong and silent type. Another woman stands on the steps above Sif: she must be Frigga, Thor's mother.

Clint looks over to Thor, who stands next to Clint and Steve, his eyes far away from his father's speech. They're focused to the left. Clint follows his gaze. There is an obvious absence there, a gap between Frigga and Sif where someone is missing. Loki. Clint stares at the empty step for a long moment.

"Thank you," Steve says when Odin finishes, stepping forwards with his plain black box. Clint doesn't move. He knows this is Steve's job.

‘Captain America’ goes on for a few minutes about how thankful the Earth is, and then asks Odin for permission to approach. Clint hangs back, trying to hide the smile on his face as Steve gives the box to Odin.

 "A peace offering," he explains, "a small gift, an example of our technology and our culture on Earth."

Odin opens the box and pulls out a small rectangular device.

"It is the gift of music!" Thor booms, jumping forward to show his father how to use it. "They call it the I of Pod. The great Tony Stark has filled it with the greatest of the music of Midgard for your enjoyment! It is powered by batteries which will never die." Thor presses a few buttons, and _Bohemian Rhapsody_ comes blasting out of the small speakers Tony had added. "This is my favorite," he says with a grin.

Odin looks at the iPod as though it's going to bite him until Thor turns it off and steps back with a smile.

"My thanks," Odin says. "May peace remain between our realms,” he nods, as a means to dismiss them from the hall for tonight. Clint knows the plan is to wait, to spend awhile on Asgard before they have enough trust to ask Odin if they can see Loki. But, considering how long it took them to get this far, that could be _weeks._ They don't have time for ceremony. They need to find Coulson _now_.

Clint takes a deep breath.

"Can I make a request?" he says, trying his best to imitate the language they use on Asgard. Steve turns to Clint and shakes his head. Clint ignores him.

Odin turns his gaze to Clint and stares at him for a long moment. Finally, the All-Father nods.

"We're not just here to make peace," he says. Steve stares at Clint in disbelief, but Clint ignores him. "Earth has recently been attacked by Amora the Enchantress and Skurge the Executioner, both from Asgard."

"Is this true?" Odin asks, turning to Thor, who nods.

Clint continues, "She's stolen the Chitauri scepter, the one connected to the tesseract. We believe that – _I_ believe that she is in league with Loki. I'd like your permission to –"

"You are Hawkeye, are you not?" Odin says unexpectedly. Clint nods. "You  are one of the men who were under Loki's control."

"Yes, I–"

"You wish to speak to him," Odin glances at Thor, and Clint wonders what he told his father of the Avengers. “You intend to interrogate Loki. But he will not speak to anyone."

"I thought that–"

"You may try." Odin stands up from his throne. "But there is no guarantee that you will be successful."

"We'll see," Clint replies, bowing alongside Steve. He knows he should feel triumphant, but he doesn't. Not at all.

*

A lone guard stands in front of the door Odin leads them to. It's in the middle of the winding corridors and rooms of the palace, deep underneath the throne room and Odin's hall. Odin nods once, and the guard steps aside at his command.

Clint, Thor, and Steve follow the All-Father down stone stair steps. Clint looks around at the crudely carved walls of the tunnel as they descend. It's cold, damp, and dark; it is nothing like the other halls of Asgard.

Finally, Odin stops at the bottom of the steps and turns to the three of them.

"Loki is further in," Odin says. “You can stay down here as long as you like, but I will warn you: if he speaks, do not trust a word he says. Loki is known for his silver tongue." They nod and watch him leave.

"Come," Thor says. Steve looks to Clint as if he's going to ask him if he's sure about this, but Clint ignores him and falls into step behind Thor.

The tunnel empties into a cave. It's not very large, the ceiling lower than most of the halls of Asgard, the round stone walls draped in shadow. The few torches on the walls give off barely enough light to reach the figure in the middle of the cave.

Loki sits in the center on his knees, his clothes in tatters, his body bound by the form of a gigantic snake.

Steve hisses out through his teeth when they see it. It's large and dark green, wrapped around Loki with its head hung above him, its mouth open to reveal two large, shining fangs. Loki is kneeling on his knees with his limbs pinned down to his sides by the snake’s body. His head hangs low, his dark hair lank around his face

The snake makes a strangled hissing noise as they slowly approach Loki.

"Brother," Thor says in a low voice, "Loki." Loki does not open his eyes.

At that moment, the snake lets out a low hiss, and a drop of venom falls from one of the snake's fangs. It lands on Loki's neck and hisses and smokes as it runs down his skin. Loki shakes quietly.

"What the hell?" Steve says to Thor in an undertone, "we didn't know you were torturing him!"

"This is the only way to control him and his magic," Thor explains softly. He sounds sad, Clint thinks.

"A punishment to fit the crime," Clint whistles through his teeth and steps forward. He bends down, an inch away from Loki's face. The snake eyes him curiously, but does not strike. Loki's eyes remain closed.

"Loki," Steve says, joining Clint by his side. The snake nudges part of its body against their boots, but they don’t flinch back. "Tell us what you did to Amora." Clint realizes with a sinking feeling, as Loki keeps his eyes steadfastly closed, that this isn't going to work.

"What is she doing for you?" Steve asks again.

Loki ignores them completely, but Clint knows he's listening.

"Brother," Thor begins, pacing around Loki and the snake, "if you could just tell us what you know, what she's planning, you could redeem yourself. Father would–" The snake lets out a long hiss again and the venom falls onto Loki's chest this time. He writhes for a moment as it drips down the bare skin underneath his ripped tunic; Clint sees the skin tint blue as it trickles down.

"We aren't going to get anything out of him this way," Steve says.

"Loki, please," Thor pleads, "We want to help you."

Loki closes his eyes and doesn't say a word.

*

That night, the feast that is thrown in their honor is massive. Steve and Clint are invited and hesitantly meet outside before they go in.

"Remember –" Steve warns him.

"I know, I know," Clint sighs. "I'll be in my bedroom, making no noise and pretending I don't exist."

“You’re worse than Tony,” Steve mutters, confused. He opens the huge doors to the dining hall, and Clint follows him into the feast.

Thor's parents, friends, and what appears to be their friends and families are all crowded around a table, talking and eating together without ceremony. Half the table seems to be recounting great battles, and the other half are just cracking jokes.

Clint smiles a little. This, he can handle.

"My friends," Thor booms from the other end of the table when he spots Steve and Clint. He stands up to usher them into seats that have obviously been saved. "Come! Let me introduce you to my friends."

Thor seats Steve in between Fandral and Volstagg, and Clint gets to sit in between Sif and Hogun. Frigga smiles as Thor takes this as a chance to recount a part of the Battle of New York to his friends and parents. Steve chimes in at all the right parts and Clint laughs at the jokes, but he notices the unease in Thor's story, the way he avoids mention of Loki, and the way his friends seem reluctant to listen to this particular tale.

"And then, she said, 'I don't see how this is a party,'" Thor recounts in a passable imitation of Natasha's drawl. "But pray do tell us, Clint, what is the battle of Budapest that she mentioned? Some great adventure that you witnessed with the Black Widow?" It wasn't so much an inside joke as it was a code, their way of exchanging information without tipping off others, so Clint opens his mouth to say that it was nothing. They all turn to him, though, and he can’t help but notice the look on Thor’s face.

Clint clears his throat and manages a smile. “Well, I don’t know about battle,” he says. "I was on a mission with Natasha, the Black Widow, and Coulson, that is –"

"Agent Coulson is the man I spoke of earlier," Thor interrupts in a lower voice.

"Yes," Clint tries to smile again, and begins to tell them of their time in Dhaka. It's close enough. They laugh when he talks about how Coulson had beat off four guys with a skillet in their supposed safe house, and gasp when he tells them of how Natasha fooled the terrorists into giving up their location. It's almost fun, until he remembers the way Coulson used to look down to hide a small smile that would creep up whenever someone bragged him up. Clint stares down at his hands when he finishes, and it's Steve's turn to be interrogated on World War II and Hydra as Clint picks at the large helpings of food on his plate.

Clint sticks his hand into his pocket and runs his fingertips over the envelope. He always carries it with him, although he isn't sure why he's bothering anymore.

Steve finishes his story quickly, and Clint takes it as his chance to escape the warm, stuffy atmosphere of food and fighting. He takes a long gulp of mead and gets to his feet to wander off down the long balcony he'd spotted earlier.

The sun is setting, but there are torches lit and light from the dining hall shines out onto the balcony. Clint heads towards the railing and boosts himself up onto it so he can sit there. He pulls the still-unopened letter out to turn it over in his hands as he watches the city darken.

"It is a beautiful night," Sif says, appearing at his side. Clint startles, shoving the envelope back into his pocket like a guilty child. He hadn't heard her, but he hadn't exactly been expecting her of all people to sneak up on him.

"Yeah," he shrugs, turning back to the giant houses and hills of Asgard. "Sorry for leaving your feast, I just wanted to get some air," he gestures outward, expecting her to turn and leave him. She doesn't.

"I took no offense," Sif assures him, "I thought I would join you, if you do not mind the company." Clint hesitates, and is surprised to find that he doesn't, actually. Sif vaguely reminds him of Natasha. It occurs to Clint that he might miss her. He hasn’t seen her much lately. Not as much as he used to.

He probably hasn’t been entirely fair to her, now that he thinks about it.

"You should meet my friend Natasha," Clint says, surprising himself. "If you ever come down to Earth – Midgard. You guys might be friends."

"I should like that one day," Sif says thoughtfully, "but it will not be possible for awhile."

Clint looks over at her, confused. "Why's that?"

"The Bifrost," she says, appearing to be somewhat confused. "It is not yet fixed. Only a few may use it, for emergencies only, as the tesseract is the only thing powering it now." Clint scrunches his brow. Thor hadn't told them that.

"Oh," he shrugs, trying to seem as though this is not news, "well, you know, if it's a tesseract…thing." Sif tilts her head at him.

"You do not know much about the tesseract, do you?" she asks. He shakes his head and she sighs. "Thor is my friend and I have the highest respect for him, but he is incredibly obtuse at times."

Clint chuckles. Yeah, he's definitely getting Natasha vibes.

"The tesseract is not simply an energy source," Sif explains. "It was created to enact the will of its mistress or master. But Legend has it that the cube's power was so great that it developed a will of its own," she says. "Passing from greedy hand to hand, out of Odin's reach, it began to think for itself. Technically, its powers allow it to create portals, but the tesseract manipulated that. As time passed, it was able to power other objects, hold minds within its grasp…" she trails off and looks to Clint. "You did not suspect any of this?" she asks curiously.

"I just thought it was some weird ass shit," he mutters. Sif looks at him sympathetically.

"It is a powerful force, and one that we cannot fully rely on for something as important as the Bifrost," she concludes with a great sigh. "Thus, we are confined to Asgard until we have returned the Bifrost to its former glory."

"Oh," Clint says faintly. "Wait," he says, "what about Amora and Loki? They seem able to travel without the Bifrost," he points out.

"They are both skilled in the dark magics," Sif says forebodingly. "Loki can cloak himself from even Heimdall, and Amora knows similar magic to his. They do not need the Bifrost or the tesseract for travelling."

"But they need magic," Clint says thoughtfully. "What's the deal with Amora, anyways?” Sif bristles slightly, and Clint wonders if he's gone too far.

"The Enchantress and her servant, the vile Executioner, were banished from Asgard for crimes of dark magic," Sif sneers, "Amora has deluded herself into thinking that, if she can convince Thor to love her, she will one day become queen.” Clint shivers slightly.

"That's really fucked up," he mutters.

"So it is," Sif sighs her agreement. After a long moment where neither of them speak, Sif takes a step back. "I should return," she says, "I apologize for interrupting you – all of the light is gone, and it shall be hard to read your letter."

She leaves without further comment as Clint reaches his hand into his pocket to clamp down hard on the sealed envelope. He lets out a deep breath and swings his legs back over the railing and onto the balcony. The feast is in full swing by now, but he still doesn't feel hungry. Clint retreats to his room.

*

If it was difficult to sleep on Earth, it's twice as hard on Asgard. Clint knows he should be tired out of his mind, and he is. It's been nearly a week since they first arrived, a week of ambassador duties, feasts, many failed attempts to convince Loki to speak to them, and subtly gathering information on Loki, Amora, the tesseract, and whatever else they can manage. They’re making progress, but it’s sure and slow.

It still isn't enough to let him sleep, unfortunately. It all just weighs down on his mind, like the weight of the envelope he always keeps in a pocket, until he finds that he prefers waking to sleeping.

Clint tosses and turns on his hard bed, the covers piled heavily over him to fight off the cold, and stares up at the stars through the glass ceiling of his fancy room. The skies are dark and black, the color of the galaxies more vivid than anything he has ever seen on Earth, no matter where they'd been stationed on faraway ops. He stares into the darkness and tries not to think about looking up into the stars back then.

There's no prelude to the dream this time, just the darkness of the motel room that he now knows so well. He's sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at Coulson, who is sitting in a chair, looking at him thoughtfully. A packed suitcase lays on the floor next to him.

Coulson looks tired, the giant bags under his eyes bringing out the shocking blue glow of his eyes. He's leaning over on the shaky motel desk with his chin in his hand, like he's ready to doze off right there.

"You're real," Coulson says.

"Uh, yeah," Clint replies bluntly, "I'm the one dreaming. That's kind of the point. What's on today's agenda, subconscious?"

Coulson sighs in exasperation, as Clint remembers seeing him do many times before. "No, Barton. You're real. I'm real."

"I'm dreaming, though," Clint says as his chest begins to constrict with dread. "Otherwise, how the hell did I get here?" Coulson doesn't reply for a moment. He seems to be struggling for words. _It has to be a dream,_ Clint thinks, _it has to be. Coulson doesn't falter like that._

"I think I – wished you here," Coulson says softly. "I think by now you have a general idea of how I'm…alive."

"You can't just _wish_ to have dream telepathy," Clint snorts, trying to shrug it off. He wants to _wake up_ already.

"Every time I doze off, every time I wish I could – that you were here, alive, you appear,” Coulson says softly. He gestures in Clint's direction as he speaks. He looks as though he's about to say more, but he swallows instead, leaving Clint with his mouth half open and confused.

"Is it because of the tesseract?" he says, as the pieces click together in his mind. It's too real. Too solid. Too clear to be a dream. "Shit, that thing was in my head. It's in yours, too, isn't it?" Coulson nods.

"I can, ah, _use_ the connection between us," Coulson explains. Clint waits for him to go on, but he doesn't.

 His mouth goes dry as he considers. "Can it read me when I'm awake? Can you even _tell_ me?" Coulson doesn't answer. That alone tells him enough. "How many times has this happened?" Coulson pauses awkwardly. _No_ , Clint thinks, _no, no, no, it couldn’t be real. It can’t be._

"The warehouse, the first night," he thinks, counting on his fingers. "Here, twice, I think. But it's not just controlling me, Barton, I'm controlling it. I brought you here." He sounds scared, frightened of the power, and Clint feels the urge once again to comfort Coulson, to assure him that it's all going to work out. He has no idea if it will.

"Twice? Wait, controlling _you_?" A pained look crosses Coulson's face.

"I can't,” he shakes his head. “I just, I can’t.” Coulson swallows. “Was it a different count for you?"

"Uh, last time," Clint starts to explain, but he stops. "I was here," he says carefully, gesturing to the bed. They dissolve into an awkward silence. _Oh, god._

"You called me the Cheshire cat," Coulson says helpfully, his voice breaking in his throat.

"That was me," Clint says in a small voice, recalling the feeling of Coulson's lips on his own. "But you never said–"

"I couldn't," Coulson says, sounding strangled. "I wanted to, god, believe me, but I–"

"We don't have time for this," Clint says suddenly. "What can you tell me? Can you tell me anything? Can you–" He feels his throat swell up. _You're being ridiculous, Barton,_ he tells himself, _it's just a dream, you can't cry._

Coulson looks down at his hands.

"You could forget about them, if you wanted to," Coulson says, "you could leave them behind. It could be just us, just the two of us."

"Shit, Coulson, you know I can't–"

"Why not?" he whispers, standing up to sit on the bed beside Clint. He reaches down to take Clint's hands in his own. If it’s just a dream, he has to be imagining the icy coldness of Coulson’s hands. "It would be just like it used to be – before the Avengers, before Natasha – it would be just _us._ Why can't you have that again?"

"Because," Clint says as he pulls back, "because you aren't you."

Coulson freezes and moves away from Clint. He gets up and walks over to the window. Clint watches him.

Clint stays on the bed, feeling cold numbness seep into his limbs.

"I will find you," he promises.

"Good luck with that," Coulson replies, voice dripping with dry amusement.

Clint startles awake.

*

It's easy to slip past the guard in front of Loki's prison. Clint is used to people who are more vigilant than this, but the guard is probably used to people a bit smaller. He carries his recurve bow and quiver, but the thing he's most nervous about carrying is hidden under his jacket.

Clint stops at the edge of the cave. Loki kneels in the same place as before, the giant snake still coiled around him. Clint walks slowly to the center of his prison. He pulls out a bowl.

He holds it there for several minutes, catching the venom that drips from the snake's fangs. He doesn't move, doesn't let any of it splash onto Loki, and doesn't say a word. He puts himself into a different headspace, the sniper's headspace where all he cares about is the target. Time passes slowly.

Loki opens his eyes a fraction.

"You know, I never saw you as the strong and silent type," Clint says in reply to this development. "But you're doing a great job with it so far. I bet Odin sees through it all." Loki doesn't say a word. "But it's not Odin who it's for, is it? It's Thor. You like to see him suffer, to see him tear himself apart over you."

Loki blinks, his eyelashes jumping dark and long over his pale cheekbones.

"Have you ever loved someone?" Clint asks. "Really, truly loved someone? Have you ever felt love for someone other than yourself? Are you capable of that?" A drop of venom splashes into Clint's half-full bowl, sending tiny drops onto his hands. He winces, but the venom doesn’t burn like acid, not as he’d thought.

"It hurts like hell," Clint continues, "more than any torture, or any other kind of pain. It hurts to hope, and to yearn, and to lose them. You should consider adding it to you arsenal."

"Are you just going to go on all night?" When Loki speaks, his voice is rough and unused. He is a shadow of his former self in every way.

"No," Clint says, "I was hoping that you'd join me." A drop splashes into the bowl and the snake hisses above him. "Soon, I'm going to have to empty this," he warns Loki.

"What would Thor say?" Loki asks softly. "Aiding your enemy. What would the Captain think?"

"It's just you and me here tonight, Loki," Clint says in a low voice, "just like old times."

"You didn't seem to have a problem with doing all the talking then," Loki chuckles, "on and on about everything I asked–"

"I didn't tell you everything," Clint interrupts, "just like Selvig didn't."

"Ah, yes, the story of my downfall," Loki sighs. "Pray tell, what did you leave out?" Another drop of venom and the bowl is full.

"Hold on a sec," Clint says. He takes a few steps away to pour the bowl out over the stone. It smokes when it hits the ground. When he returns to Loki, he's shaking under another splash of venom, his skin turning blue in the shape of the splash. Clint holds the bowl out once again and watches as patches of Loki's skin turn white once again.

"Natasha told you about her ledger," he says, "and, besides the moment when you completely lost track of the metaphor and started talking about a book overflowing with blood or something, you seemed to understand her slightly. Very few experience that."

"Experience what?" Loki's voice is hoarse again as he sneers at Clint, "empathy?"

"No," Clint replies simply, "pity."

"I did not–"

"You don't owe anyone anything," Clint observes, "you never have. You keep your ledgers, your debt, your accounts in check. You keep yourself in the black, everything accounted for, everything a profit, and stay out of the red. Out of debt."

"What is there to gain from this?" Loki asks. “This debt, is it not weakness?"

"Not always," Clint says. The snake head hisses from above and he flinches a little. The next drop of venom hits the rim of the bowl and slides down. Swearing internally, Clint wipes it away with his hand and then curses out loud. He isn't immortal; it stings his hand, leaving patches of raw skin on the palm. Loki looks up at him and chuckles.

"You are made of weaknesses. Humans," he scoffs.

"I used to be like you," Clint says when he regains his composure, smiling faintly at the memories, "I was lucky enough to get caught by someone a bit more sympathetic."

"It is a weakness, you know," Loki says, "you treat it as a high point, you humans, but it is only your downfall."

"It's a weakness that saved my life," Clint goes on, ignoring Loki's taunts. "I was shot, bleeding, dying. Someone took me in, helped me join SHIELD, helped me become…" Clint trails off.

"It was one of the women I killed, wasn't it?" Loki replies thoughtfully. He lets his hooded eyes fall onto the ground. "Or, shall I say, _you_ killed?"

"I don't suppose you remember the name of every man you stabbed through the chest." Clint waits, and finally Loki looks up to him.

"Amora," he whispers, "she has no idea what she's done." Clint feels a slight wave of triumph, but keeps his face steady. _Amora's doing this,_ he thinks, _so now what_? "It was…that man. Coulson, wasn't it?" Loki asks. "Yes. That makes sense. Is that why you speak of love, Agent Barton? Of yearning? Of loss?"

"I can't get him back without you," Clint says suddenly. It's a half truth, as far as he knows. But this is Loki, the master of lies.

"Of course you can't," Loki sighs, "so you come to me. To Asgard, searching for an explanation, for Amora, for the tesseract. But it isn't going to be enough, is it?"

"Please," Clint says, "I don't know what –" the snake hisses loudly, interrupting him, and venom splashes into his bowl.

"And you expect me, a prisoner, at your mercy, to help you? I have fallen for that trick once before, _Agent_ Barton, I'm not going to fall for it again," Loki sneers.

"Then I'd like to apologize," Clint mutters. "For lying to you."

"Lying? As if you could lie to _me_.”

Clint throws the bowl, filled to the brim with venom, at the cave wall. It shatters, the liquid hissing and smoking against the stone on impact.

"You never felt pity for Natasha, not for a second – you feel pity for _me_ , because you understand," he sneers. Clint reaches into his quiver and pulls out an arrow behind his back, keeping his fist tightly around it. “You know how it feels to love someone you can never have, someone who will never look at you the way you want, someone who looks down on you and pities you and probably hates your guts half the time."

Loki is seething, writhing from the burning of the venom on his skin.

"You know love, and you know me, and you know, above all, that all of this – _all_ of this – is your own damn fault."

"Accept the weakness, then," Loki teases, "let it become you, as it certainly will soon enough."

"Is that a threat?" Clint asks.

"It is a promise," Loki snarls. The snake's hissing fills the silence. Clint squeezes the arrow in his fist, waiting for a reason, any reason, to jump forward with it.

"If you, or Amora, or _anyone_ hurts him, I will make you pay," he spits.

Loki chuckles, a low, rumbling noise as Clint spins on his heel to leave.

"You know what they say about journeys of revenge," Loki smiles. Clint turns back a fraction.

"Yeah, I know, dig two graves," Clint says.

"No." Loki's grin is like ice. " _Have fun_."

Clint turns and leaves.

The guard doesn't notice him slip out, so Clint makes his way unhindered through the corridors of the palace. He goes up, up to the stairs and walkways underneath the stars, and leans out over a balcony so he can look over Asgard and let his anger seep out into the night air.

The city is so peaceful from up here, devoid of the noise and chatter of New York, back on Earth. He had missed this, these quiet nights away from it all, nights stolen during remote operations or in his sniper's nest with only the voice in his ear for company. The palace is beautiful, but Clint can’t care, can't think, can't concentrate as Loki's words echo through his mind.

_Accept the weakness. Let it become you, as it will soon enough._

He pulls Coulson's letter out of his pocket and turns it over in his hands. The stars and constellations are shockingly bright. They give off enough light for him to read the single black _C_ on the envelope. It's wrinkled by now, crinkled and stained from carrying it around, brushing his hand over it occasionally. It's almost comforting, a reminder that Coulson is _alive_.  He brushes his thumb under the corner of the envelope and picks at the seal a little. He could tear it open if he wanted to.

_It is a promise._

Clint nearly drops the letter over the balcony.

"Shit," he mutters, and runs back into the palace, hoping that he can remember the way to Steve's room.

He bursts through the doors without even knocking. Steve is fast asleep, but he startles at Clint's entrance.

"Steve, wake up," Clint urges. Steve jumps out of bed, alert in an instant. "I know what Amora is after," he says.

"What?" he asks, confused. "Shouldn’t you be sleeping? You look like – How do you know? What happened?"

“She’s working for Loki,” Clint says, “she has to be following his orders somehow. Maybe she snuck in to see him, maybe they had a preexisting arrangement. I don’t know. But I do know that Loki is after revenge.”

“How do you know that?” Steve presses him. He gets out of his bed and begins to dress as Clint speaks.

"They haven’t attacked us," Clint says, not quite answering the question. “They’re biding their time, waiting for Loki to escape, or for Amora to make her move at the right moment. But they want to zero in on our weaknesses. What do you think that means?” he asks Steve.

"He started with Coulson," Steve growls as he slips on his boots. A vein in his neck is twitching, his jaw set sternly. "Someone we all knew, even if we weren't all –" he chances a glance at Clint. “He’s hurting us by hurting people we know. Why would he do that?”

“Killing us isn’t revenge enough,” Clint says. “Loki knows where revenge got him last time. He’s at rock bottom now, so he’s trying to relish this. He wants to hurt us in the most dramatic way possible. What do you think that means?”

"He'll be going after people. We have to get back," Steve says urgently. "I'll get Thor. If Loki knows you know,” Steve glances at Clint again, “Amora will make her move. She'll likely go after Jane first. Darcy."

"Selvig," Clint mutters, "and then there's Pepper Potts. She might be safe, though, if she’s at the Tower.”

“Pepper’s been out in California lately,” Steve says. “Her and Tony have been…arguing.”

“What?” Clint asks, but it isn’t the time, and Steve doesn’t elaborate.

“Rhodey can take care of himself, but Banner had someone. And,” Steve swallows, “Peggy –“

Thor plummets through the doors and into Steve's room with a crash. He looks between Steve and Clint, surprised to see Clint in Steve’s room.

"Good," he booms darkly, "you are already awake. Have you heard?"

Clint meets Steve’s eye, his heart sinking.

"Loki has escaped," Thor growls. "He's gone."


	4. Chapter 4

"Tony," Steve says breathlessly, bursting in through the balcony doors and into Stark Tower. Clint follows closely behind; Thor flew off the helipad the moment they landed for Jane and Darcy's apartment. Tony isn't there, but Bruce is, sitting on the couch, drinking tea, and reading a book.

"He's in the lab," Bruce says, looking up, "we didn't expect you back for a few more –"

"Bruce," Clint starts as Steve heads for the hallway purposefully. "Loki's free."

"What?" he says tersely, setting down his mug. "How?”

"I have to find Natasha," Clint says urgently. “But we think he's going to get revenge on us with people we might, uh, care about." Bruce's expression darkens and Clint takes an automatic step backwards. "Friends. Family. Girlfriends, boyfriends… Is there anyone you can think of?" he asks.

"Darcy and Jane's apartment –"

"Thor’s headed there," Clint says. "And he's going for Selvig as well. But I was thinking –"

"Betty," Bruce nods, pulling out his phone. "Betty Ross. I haven't spoken to her in a long time, but there’s always a chance." Bruce puts his phone up to his ear.

Clint nods, filing the name away in the back of his mind, and runs after Steve to catch up with him as he steps into the elevator and punches the button for Tony's lab. It takes too long to get there, during which Steve lists off names and orders for Jarvis to send to SHIELD. Clint calls Natasha, who is at headquarters for some reason he isn’t cleared to know about anymore.

"What the fuck happened, Clint?" she hisses into her phone after he explains that Loki is missing and the theory they're running on. “That’s a big leap to make. How can you know that so surely? You said you didn't get anything out of him when you and Cap visited. You said –"

"It's like that time in Barcelona," he says casually, which is code for _I fucked shit up and I'll tell you later when SHIELD isn't breathing down both our necks and bugging our calls_.

"Intuition?" she manages to chuckle back heartlessly, and he manages a forced half-laugh before he notices Steve eyeing him suspiciously from the corner of his eye.

"Something I overheard from one of the Asgardians. It's easier to think like they do when you're up there with 'em," he lies. From the clicking noise Natasha makes with her tongue, he can tell she isn't buying it.

"I can't talk long," she says after a long pause, "Hill wants to know specifics. You need me to find Betty Ross, right? We have Selvig here, agents have been sent to Jane and Darcy's, and we’ve dispatched some agents stationed in England to Peggy Carter’s family home. Pepper is apparently traveling, and Rhodes is off on a mission, but he has his War Machine armor.”

“Is that everyone?” he asks as the elevator doors ding open.

“It better be,” Natasha replies. "I have to go. We'll talk later," she says darkly. The line goes dead.

Clint doesn't even have a chance to sigh in relief when they step out of the elevator before Steve grabs him by the shoulders and pushes him into a corner, out of view of the transparent glass windows of the lab and the cameras Clint knows Stark has in this hall.

"What did you do?" Steve breathes in Clint’s ear. “I know you don’t want to go down for this, but I need to know.” Clint feels his heart sink down into his stomach.

"I didn't–" Steve gives him a look, like he knows, and Clint closes his eyes for a moment. "I went to visit him. Snuck past the guards. He talked." He opens his eyes, but Steve doesn’t look surprised.

"And?" he asks, like he knows what Clint is holding back.

"I brought a bowl," Clint breathes. Steve deflates as he fills in the gaps.

"Did he come right out and threaten us?" he asks. “Did you at least get something…?" he struggles for a word that's kind, but Clint knows what he really means.

"Worthwhile?" he sneers. "Amora's working for him. He's after revenge on us, and Amora has made an agreement with him. I think he’s promised her a seat of power if his plan works."

"And Coulson?" Steve asks unflinchingly.

"A coincidence." Clint looks down at his shoes, thinking of his dream. "Steve, I know this looks bad," he starts, but Steve raises a hand and backs away.

"We've taken too much time already," he says. "Forget it. For now."

With that, he turns down the hall and punches his code into the number pad on the door of Tony's lab and rushes in. Clint barely catches the door and follows him into the lab. Steve's urgency is back as he rushes into the room, the noise of some old band blaring into Clint's ears.

"Tony?" Steve yells, looking around on Tony's side of the lab, the workshop side. He isn't there. "Tony?" he bellows, and the music shuts off. Tony pops up from behind a counter. He looks around.

"What?" he says sharply. Steve stops and stares at him for a moment.

"Where's Pepper?" he asks, as though he half expected her to be in the lab as well.

"Don't know, don't care," Tony says bluntly, disappearing back onto the floor. Clint joins them on the other side of the counter, where Tony is slumped on the floor, StarkPad in one hand, a glass of alcohol in the other, the designs for some kind of jet glowing blue underneath his fingers.

"It's Loki," Clint interjects, feeling strange to be the one providing an explanation. Tony's head snaps up. "He's back. He's out for revenge, after people we may care about." Clint stops, looking at Tony. Then Steve. Then Tony, who flips the yet on his StarkPad onto its belly and shrugs.

"Well, Pepper's safe, then," he slurs, "because she's made it quite clear that she–"

Clint stops listening as Tony babbles on, because his phone is buzzing in his pocket.

 _Selvig and Ross are in protective custody, r_ eads the text from Natasha. _Thor and Foster are on their way to you. Lewis was out with friends, but they're trying to trace her. No news yet on Peggy Carter. On my way to Pepper, she's in a jet on her way to France._

"What about Colonel Rhodes – Rhodey?" Steve is asking gently, in an entirely different world than Clint. He's on the floor next to Tony, and has succeeded in wrestling the alcohol away from him.

"'s his suit. He'll be fine," Tony mutters. "Shouldn't you be worried 'bout your Peggy?" Steve blinks a few times.

“She’s in England, with her family,” Steve says. “I haven’t seen her since…” Steve looks helplessly over to Clint.

Tony ignores Steve and sighs. “Everybody’s got somebody. You, Thor, Barton’s had his head in the clouds, and even Coulson had whatshername in Portland—“

“Stark, what the hell are you talking about?” Clint snaps. Tony and Steve stare at him. Steve puts a hand on Clint’s shoulder.

“Clint,” Steve mutters placatingly. Clint shrugs him off.

“I need to text Natasha,” he says, stepping away and pulling out his phone.

 _did stark and pots break up?_ he texts Natasha, ignoring the stares of the others.

The reply is instantaneous: _Really? This is when you choose to get involved in the team?_

Clint doesn't reply. He shoves his phone into his pocket and ignores it when it instantly begins to buzz again.

“Where’s Pepper?” Steve asks.

"Fucking typical," Tony snarls. “She’s on her way to France, since you care about her so much, Rogers."

"What the hell are you talking about, Stark?" Steve bristles.

"Leave me alone," Tony sneers, "give me back my fucking–"

Bruce bursts through the door, followed by Thor.

"Television, Jarvis," Bruce snaps, and the AI projects CNN into the middle of the lab.

"– Where there appears to be a unidentified woman attacking the city," the reporter says. “She appears to have released a threat against the Heroes of New York, who have recently become known as The Avengers. There has been no statement or appearance of any of the Avengers yet.”

They all quiet to watch as shaky camera footage rolls, of people running and screaming as a familiar blonde woman, dressed all in green and accompanied by her axe-wielding friend, hovers in the air, blue-green magic leaking from her hands.

"Amora," Steve mutters. “Loki knows we were tipped off,” he says, nodding at Clint. “They’re making their move now. We need to get out there and stop her.”

"No," Clint interjects. "It's a distraction."

"Clint," Steve gets to his feet and crosses his arms, but Clint doesn't let him finish.

"She doesn't have the scepter," Clint observes, "which means Loki's already found her and retrieved it. Which means he's somewhere else, planning his move. Maybe he’s taking more hostages, or maybe he’s found someone to help him.” Clint stops, his eyes lighting up as the pieces click together. He scrambles for his phone and turns away from the others as Tony begins to snipe at Bruce and Steve.

"What?" Natasha hisses when she picks up.

"Portland," Clint says breathlessly, "Remember at the funeral? Tony said that Coulson told him, when he asked if Coulson had a girlfriend, that she was a cellist who moved out to Portland. Why would he say that?”

“I don’t know,” Natasha says. “You were gone, Clint, he was trying to help Fury kickstart the Avengers Initiative.“

“Yeah, but _why_?” Clint stressed. “Why ‘The Avengers’? Why Coulson? Why did Fury use us the way he did?” he asks desperately.

“We’ve been through this,” Natasha says. “We have other problems right now, Clint.”

“But what if something Coulson knows, or said, can help us, Natasha?” he asks. “What if he’s working for Loki now? What if he’s—“ Clint didn’t want to say it, didn’t want SHIELD to hear through his phone call, didn’t want to reinforce their orders to shoot Coulson on sight.

“What if Fury was always planning on using Coulson as a martyr to bring us together?” Clint asks. “He could have used anyone to introduce us all, but he made sure we all knew Coulson. He made sure we all cared.”

“But Coulson really died, Clint,” Natasha says. “You saw what happened.”

“Fine,” Clint cries, “I’m wrong. I’m clutching at straws. But, if I am, if you really think I’m crazy, Nat, tell me: Why did Coulson lie about a girlfriend in Portland? Why would he say that to Stark – he knew Stark would go around asking about her if he died. Coulson knew that we’d hear about the cellist from Portland. But what if it was a code?”

“Clint—“ Bruce interrupts.

“Shut up!” Clint snaps at him, throwing up a hand. “Natasha,” he says into the phone. “You know what I mean. Budapest. Lima. Toronto. Codes, Natasha. What does _Portland_ mean to you?”

Natasha pauses on the other end of the phone for a long moment.

“It was the op you missed out on last year,” she says finally. “You were keeping an eye on Selvig. Coulson and I were after some intel on AIM. He got hit with a chemical. He thought he was dying, but it only put him into a kind of hibernation.” Natasha hesitates. “When he thought he was dying, he told me about the letters. He wanted me to tell you to read your letter, if he didn’t make it. He said that you wouldn’t do it on your own. He made me promise to make you read it.”

"Natasha," Clint whispers, and something in his tone of voice must make her listen, because she doesn’t interrupt him. He takes a sharp breath in and lets it out through his teeth. "Tell me. Do you know why he wrote the letter?"

"He only told me that he wrote it for you to read after the Avengers Initiative was enacted, but you might get it sooner than he’d planned. That's why he told you where it was after New Mexico, but I –" she falters for a moment. "He never told _me_ where to find them, just that you’d know." Clint could hear the hurt in Natasha’s voice, that Coulson hadn’t trusted her with that final piece of intel.

“He always knew Fury was going to use his death, fake or not, to manipulate us,” Clint says, his voice faint in his own ears. “He planned it. And Coulson made plans…”

"Barton," Steve says sharply from behind him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "We've got bigger fish to fry."

"It is Darcy," Thor says, his face falling and crumpling.

"No," Clint breathes, his phone falling away from his ear. "What happened?"

"Amora got to her before I," Thor says angrily. Clint turns to look at CNN, where Amora appears to have a hostage.

“Nat, I gotta go,” Clint says, putting his phone back to his ear.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Natasha warns him. “Clint—“

“I’m sorry, Nat,” he breathes. “I’ve been an idiot.”

They don’t have time for her to pause as she does, but he hears Natasha inhale and exhale.

“Yeah,” she says. “I know. But it’s nice to hear you say it. Take care of yourself out there okay?”

“You, too,” Clint says before he hangs up.

“We’ve got a helicopter on the way,” Steve says when Clint turns back to the small meeting they’ve started without him. “Hulk and I will take Amora from the ground, and Thor, I’ll need you in the skies. Hawkeye,” Steve snaps at him, “I’ll need you at a good vantage point.”

“Jarvis, get my suit –“ Tony starts, but Steve rounds on him.

“You aren’t setting foot in any suit until you’re sober,” Steve says. “You’re staying here.” Tony stands up unsteadily and stares Steve down.

“Like hell I will,” he growls. “You need me, Rogers, you all do. You can’t beat her without me. You can suit up and leave me here, but you can’t stop me.”

"Jarvis," Steve says, looking up at the ceiling, "initiate protocol 39274."

"Yes, sir," Jarvis replies. "Putting all Iron Man suits on lockdown until further notice."

"You son of a bitch," Tony yells, leaping forward and punching Steve drunkenly. He rolls off of it like it's nothing, but Tony continues until Thor comes up from behind him and holds him back. "I trusted you!" he yells at Steve. “Those codes are for emergencies, those are for worst-case-scenarios, those aren't for –"

"And I trusted you," Steve sighs, "but, right now, we need to stop Amora, and you aren’t safe to fly. I'm sorry, Tony."

"I will never forget this, Rogers," he sneers.

"Let's go," Steve says, slipping into the role of Captain America easily, making a clear effort to ignore Tony. He tugs his cowl on over his head. "Thor, Banner, you go ahead. Hawkeye and I will follow in the chopper."

"It's a distraction, Cap," Clint says to Steve as he leads them out of the lab, leaving Tony behind. Something crashes as Tony kicks it, and Steve looks back automatically, concern and worry in his eyes.

“You were right,” Steve says. “She’s got Darcy, and that’s enough. We have to help her.”

“I’m not going with you,” Clint says, stepping in front of Steve. “She’s drawing attention away from the real problem. We have to find Loki and stop whatever he’s doing.”

"Barton, at this point, I don't care what you do. Just get the hell out of my way," Steve says darkly, pushing Clint aside. He gets into the elevator beside Bruce and Thor.

Clint watches the elevator doors close, not without a pang of regret. He thinks of Darcy with a shudder, and hoped that she tasered Amora on her way out. He’d like to help them, but he can’t ignore his gut. Not when it’s got him this far.

Clint dips a hand into his pocket and pulls out the envelope.

*

 _Barton,_ it reads.

_First of all, I'd like to say I'm sorry. I'm sorry for not trusting your judgment with Natasha. You were right, and I’m glad you were. I'm sorry for recommending you for the Avengers Initiative. I got you into this. I'm sorry, too, for spending half the year in California and leaving you with Natasha. I didn't have to take the assignment. You were right. I was running away. I'm sorry for being such a coward._

_I’m sorry for dying._

_We both knew it had to come eventually, in a job like this, with people like us. I hoped that it would be me, first, because you deserve a hell of a lot more out of life than what you've gotten so far. I hope you get there. I'm not going to ask you to make the best of it, because I know you never listen anyways. You'll do whatever the hell you want, regardless of what I say._

_When Fury asked me who I recommended for the Initiative, you were my first choice. I couldn't help but hope that you would be rejected. It was selfish, but, knowing what you will face, what will inevitably happen to you, Natasha, Stark, Banner, and Rogers, I hoped that you wouldn't be chosen. It would have been easy to report your rule breaking and disqualify you. But we need you to do this, to complete the team, and be the man that no one else can be. We need heroes, to fight for us, to make sacrifices, to be the best we've got._

_I'm not that person, but I know you can be, and you will be. The world needs you more than me. Please, remember that._

_\- Phil Coulson_

Clint crumples the paper in his hands. He doesn't know what he was expecting. A map with an X and a list of Loki’s plans? A confession? A declaration?

This is worse than any possibility. This is Coulson _giving up_ , he thinks numbly as he stands in his bedroom, holding the letter in his hands. He knows he should be watching the fight if he can’t be there, that he should suit up, but Clint can’t bring himself to care, although he knows he should.

Coulson _let him go_ for the world, and called Clint a hero in one moment and himself a failure in the next. And Coulson was anything but.

In a sweep of anger, Clint crumples the letter up in his fist and throws it across the room.

"Fuck," he whimpers, running two hands through his hair. He should follow the others. Rescue Darcy. Do _something_ , even if he has no idea where Coulson is.

 _Idiot,_ he thinks. _What have you done?_

His eyes fall upon the ball of paper again, and Clint’s heart bursts with hope. There’s something else written on it, something in a different colored pen that he hadn’t seen before. Clint dives for the letter and smoothes the paper out.

There's something on the back, a few hastily scribbled sentences in blue ink.

_You might wonder why Fury would call it the "Avengers" Initiative before there was something to avenge. If everything went as planned (although it probably didn’t), you might find answers here. No promises._

There's an address.

"Oh, please," Clint mutters. "Please, if I can just have one thing in the whole fucking world go right for me, can it be this?" he says, before rushing off to find his motorcycle.

*

The streets are crowded, either with people fleeing the island in their cars, fearing another alien attack is on its way, or the press heading _towards_ it. Clint's glad he has the motorcycle. He winds through cars and runs stoplights, ignoring the honking and cursing that follows him. He must look strange, he figures, crouched over his motorcycle with a quiver of arrows on his back and his cell phone pressed over his ear. Stark never did make his hearing aids Bluetooth compatible.

The building Clint stops in front of is half destroyed, of course. His heart sinks when he sees it – it had been a casualty of the Battle of New York, and the crews hadn't gotten there to clean it up yet. He hesitates when he stops outside of it, wondering if there's even a chance. But he has to try.

He slips his phone back in his pocket, sets the helmet on the seat, and leaves the keys in it.

Clint tears past some caution tape and a notice about the unsafe structure before heading into the abandoned apartment building. Some of it is torn away, bricks and rubble scattered around the lobby, but enough of it remains intact.

 _32C_ , he repeats to himself as he climbs the stairs, hoping that that part of the building isn't destroyed.

There’s no one else around, not even squatters, but Clint pulls out his bow anyways. He nocks an arrow, ready to aim and shoot at the first sign of a threat. _32C,_ he thinks as he steps onto the third floor, past a hole in the wall where the wind whistles though. He speeds past it, eyes flicking over the tarnished gold of the apartment doors as he looks for the right number. 25…27…29…30…31…

32C.

Clint holds the bowstring taught and takes a deep breath as he prepares to kick down the door.

_"It's easy, sir," he said, grabbing Coulson's wrist. "It's just your grip, it's all wrong." Coulson squirmed out from under him and let the recurve bow fall to his side. His arm was still red underneath the arm guard from his first few attempts before Clint had lent him his guard and glove._

_"This is ridiculous, Barton," Coulson protested, sounding oddly flustered. He did look unusually relaxed, Clint thought, with his shirtsleeves rolled up and his suit jacket lying over a chair a few feet away. "You're the circus act, not me. When do you suspect we'll be in a situation where I won't have my gun, but I'll have a bow and arrow?"_

_"When you're  out of ammo, I'm unconscious, and all you've got is my bow, you'll look back to this moment and say, 'golly jee, I sure wish I would have listened to that circus act and learned how to shoot an arrow!'" Clint responded with a sly smile that slid off his face when Coulson gave him an icy look. "Sir."_

_"I won't say 'golly jee,'" Coulson sighed, but he lifted the bow once more and gripped it tightly in front of him, letting his elbow stick up behind him. Clint let out an exasperated sigh._

_"You're hopeless, Coulson," Clint said, moving forward to correct his grip. "I know it might be hard for you, but you're going to have to loosen up a little." With a careful touch, Clint brushed his hand over Coulson's, feeling his grip relax underneath his hand. Ignoring the voice in the back of his head telling him that it was a bad idea, Clint stepped closer to guide Coulson's elbow._

_"Hilarious," Coulson said simply, instead of lecturing him._

_"Touch your hand to your mouth," Clint said quietly, wavering in place as Coulson pulled back the bowstring, a small wrinkle appearing between his eyes as he concentrated hard on the target._

_"Mmhm," Coulson hummed._

_"Take a breath."_

_Coulson breathed in._

_"And let go."_

_He exhaled, loosing the arrow in one swift movement that Clint tracked with his sharp eyes. They froze for a moment, watching the arrow vibrate slightly as it found its home on the target, right in the last ring on the outside. Better than his last few tries, at least._

_"Good," Clint said, "for a beginner." He suddenly realized that he was very, very close to Coulson. He jumped back quickly, almost more quickly than Coulson, who smoothed down his impossibly still-smooth, lightly striped blue and purple shirt and sent Clint one of his small, professional little smiles._

_"Well," Coulson started, looking down to the bow in his hand. Clint reached into the quiver lying on the ground and pulled out another arrow._

_"Now, let's just hope you won't run out of ammo next mission," Clint joked, "if the fate of the world depends on it–"_

_"There won't be a next mission," Coulson said suddenly, cutting Clint off. He looked away, down at his shoes, at the bow in his hands, at the arrows lying on the ground feet away. Clint watched Coulson squirm under his gaze. "I'm, uh, I've been relocated."_

_"Where?" Clint breathed, gripping the arrow so tightly in his hands that his knuckles turned white._

_"California. Malibu. I'm…Tony Stark's back, and they need someone to keep an eye on him," Coulson shrugged his shoulders slightly._

_"And Fury's sending_ you _?" Clint snarled incredulously. "But what about m – Natasha and I? What the hell are we supposed to –" Clint stopped as he felt the arrow in his hands begin to break. "Are we coming with you?" he asked in a small voice, although he already knew what the answer would be._

_Coulson shook his head. "Sitwell’s been assigned to you two," he said in a measured voice, "he's agreed to handle Strike Team Delta for awhile." He still couldn’t meet Clint’s eyes._

_"But it's not –"_

_"Sorry," Coulson said, sending another little, meaningless, emotionless smile Clint's way. "You'll be fine."_

_"It's not Strike Team Delta without you," Clint protested, but Coulson was already peeling off his arm guard and shooting glove and turning away. "Coulson –"_

"Barton," Coulson says calmly as he opens the door. Clint points an arrow right between his glowing blue eyes.  

Coulson points a gun steadily at Clint.

"Nice of you to join us," he says flatly.

"Well, well, well," Loki says, twisting around to grin. "Long time no see, Agent Barton." Clint freezes, bowstring drawn, arrow pointed right at Coulson as Loki gets to his feet from the chair he's been sitting on. He's half clothed, his chest and arms partially wrapped in bandages. An emergency first aid kit sits on the table nearby. It looks like he didn’t get out of Asgard without a fight.

"Come in," Loki says, voice dropping dangerously. He lifts the stolen Chitauri scepter into the air as though he's preparing to shoot a bolt of energy with it.

"I'm fine where I am," Clint replies, keeping his aim steady. He avoids Coulson's eyes, bright, the blue energy shining through. It's similar to the scepter, but something's wrong with its glow. There is a sick haze to it, like an oil slick of ugly greens. "The others are right behind me," Clint lies. His arms are beginning to strain a little from the weight, but he doesn't budge. Coulson doesn't either. The sight of Coulson standing there, alive and breathing, his finger steady on the trigger, drives Clint’s heart beating up into his mouth.

"No, they aren't," Loki says with a smirk. "Did you really think you could lie to _me_?"

"SHIELD will be tracking him," Coulson says to Loki, ignoring Clint completely.

"Then, we'll have to handle this quickly," Loki says dismissively. "Please, tell me your bargain, so I can dismiss it and just kill you already."

"How do you know I'm here to bargain?" Clint spits.

"Because," Loki sighs, "why else would you be here?"

"To kill you."

"Ah," Loki pauses, "now _that_ would be suicide."

"Maybe this is a suicide mission," Clint says through gritted teeth. Coulson is lucky, standing there with his finger on the trigger, but the draw of the bow is heavy, and Clint has been holding the string for some time. The weight is beginning to pull at him. "Maybe I don't mind going out, as long as I take you with me."

"We both know that you can't –"

"He's stalling," Coulson interjects. "He's –"

"For someone who's pointing a gun at my head, you have a strange reluctance to look at me, Coulson," Clint says, finally addressing Coulson with a fixed look. "Don't want to look me in the eye when you shoot me? Don't want to think about how you care? How you –"

"I don't care about any of that anymore," Coulson says coldly. Out of the corner of Clint's sharp gaze, Loki grins.

"I know what it's like, remember?" Clint keeps his eyes on Coulson's. "You don't stop caring, not really. You're just a little more willing to ignore your emotions. You’re a tool, a weapon, and _he’s_ your master. But you don’t question it, because it hurts. That's what it's like, isn't it?"

When Coulson doesn't reply, he yells, "ISN'T IT?"

"This is getting rather tedious," Loki sighs. “Were you planning on winning him over with your pleas? Appealing to his better nature? It's not going to work."

"Fine," Clint says, not in defeat, but resignation. "I'm here to make a deal."

"We don't bargain with –" Loki holds up a hand to stop Coulson’s response.

"Me for him," Clint says, turning to Loki.

Coulson doesn't say a word.

"And why should I agree to that?" Loki says slowly. "You've failed me once, who knows you won't fail me again?"

"Because I’m better than him," Clint says slowly. "He got himself killed. I didn't. The Avengers, SHIELD? They’ve already accepted that he's dead and gone. They'll fight him and they won't care. But they'll want me back, because they haven't given up on me yet."

 _Yet,_ he thinks, _because, either way, after this, they will._

"Sir –" Coulson starts, his voice sounding _so wrong_ , but Loki holds up a hand to silence him.

"This is your love?" Loki growls. “This is what it does to you?"

At a loss, Clint nods.

"Then, I accept. Coulson, if you will," Loki nods.

Clint has to force himself not to shoot, to let his grip on his bow slacken while Coulson lowers his gun, steps up to him, and reaches out.

"I have to –" he starts, in the voice he uses when he's being gentle, when he's stitching up Clint's wounds, when he's telling him it's going to be alright when a mission goes sour and he's bleeding out on the dirty cement. He steps forward, so close, too close, and Clint lets his hand fall away from his bow and brush against Coulson's side.

Coulson places his hand over Clint's heart, his cold fingers brushing against the skin of Clint's neck as they touch the collar of his shirt, and pushes.

It's not like before.

It's like a wave rushing into him, consuming him, his mind burning and lungs bursting and _Clint is that you oh god get away from me run don’t do this Clint_ and suddenly it's just him, and he's drowning, but everything's okay.

Because Loki is in control.


	5. Chapter 5

Phil reels back, head spinning, pulse racing, the world rushing around him. It's not like coming out of a fog, not as he'd imagined. It's like being hit by a truck, or falling off a cliff, or –

No. It's like dying. It’s like realizing that everything you have ever known is slipping away. Loki, the drowning whispers of the tesseract…everything is gone.

"Barton?" Phil stutters as Loki steps forward, scepter in hand, and places a hand on Barton's shoulder. They hesitate there, just for a moment, but long enough for Barton to blink with his green-blue shining eyes and open his mouth to speak.

Just as Phil reaches for his gun, Loki grins, and they teleport away.

"No," he whispers, feeling his chest constrict with the onset of a panic attack. Phil collapses onto his knees on the floor and stills for a moment.

He breathes slowly, in and out, in and out, trying to think about breathing instead of the anxious thoughts that swim into his mind. It didn't used to be like this. He hadn't had a panic attack in years, but…well, after you get stabbed in the chest, things change a bit. Phil counts slowly to ten for each inhale and exhale, not daring to close his eyes, and tries to clear his mind of the bright colors flexing over his vision. Of Loki. Of the tesseract.

Of Clint Barton, eyes glowing blue once again.

"Though nothing, nothing will keep us together," he sings to himself under his breath, voice shaking in his throat as he sings. "We can beat them, forever and ever." He remembers singing this, with Barton, with the road speeding past them on one, two, three car trips bleeding into each other, until Barton had brought him a CD and tried to hide his smile.

_"What the hell is this, Barton?" he said as Barton threw a package onto his desk, wrapped in newspaper and tied carefully with some kind of string obviously stolen from the supply closets._

_"It's your birthday," Barton replied with what he presumably thought was a straight face._

_"It's not my birthday," Phil replied in a deadpan, refusing to touch the package._

_"Today is July 8th." Barton raised an eyebrow._

_"I know what day it is –"_

_"You're four days too late to prove my theory," Barton interrupted him, picking up the package again to toss around in his hands. It was light, thin, and almost square. A CD, Phil thought._

_Phil forced a sigh as he gave in, asking, "What theory?"_

_That you're secretly Captain America, and that’s how you know so much stuff about him," he grinned, unashamed, and tossed the package at Phil. He caught it automatically._

_Phil had to hide his smile as he unwrapped the_ Best of Bowie _CD and threw the paper in the trash can._

_"We can be heroes, just for one day," Barton sang as he left Phil's office, and Phil couldn't help but wish that he would stay to sing the rest._

"Oh, we can be heroes, just for one day," Phil sings under his breath.

He takes a shaky breath in and out. In and out.

Okay. He's okay. He can do this.

"Oh, Barton, you idiot," he breathes.

Phil gets to his feet, feeling his strength returning. He reaches down to check his gun, and that's when he feels the weight in his pocket. Cautiously, he reaches inside and pulls out a phone. It's Barton's, obviously, with at least 36 unread text messages from the other Avengers ( _they're a team now_ , he thinks with a gulp, _fighting Amora_.) and a bunch of missed calls.

There's only one voicemail, from 30 minutes ago. It wasn't from an outside call.

Phil's hand shakes as he types in Barton's voicemail pass code, 23556, and presses enter. He lifts the phone to his ear.

"– Off, asshole! Who the fuck gave you a license –?" Phil hears the noises of honking horns and Barton's motorcycle in the background. "Shit," Barton mutters into the phone, "uh, Hi." Barton gives a weak little chuckle as the motorcycle revs up again.

"I, uh, can't talk long because I'm on my way to Co – the apartment, and I’m on my motorcyle, so yeah. But, uh, I don't know who's listening to this, probably Natasha or…or Coulson, hopefully. But, hi.  First of all, Nat, you're right, I'm an idiot or a moron or whatever, I'm all of those, I know how dumb of an idea this is. But I have to try. Coulson, if you've gotten this, thank god. I, uh," Barton pauses for a moment, nothing but the sounds of traffic filtering through the speaker.

"Tell Natasha this, exactly: Cleveland, August 18th, 2003." Phil thinks back…he can't remember a mission in Cleveland in 2003. One of Barton and Romanoff’s, then. "That should convince her," Barton continues, with finality in his voice, "so, good luck with that." He doesn’t say anything else for a few long moments, and Phil hears nothing but the sounds of traffic in the background.

"I'm sorry," he says in a quiet voice just as Phil's about to hang up. "I read your letter after I knew you were alive. About ten minutes ago, actually. I didn't know what I was expecting," Barton chuckles miserably and Phil feels his heart sinking into his stomach. It's his fault, all of this. He shouldn't have taken Loki to his safe house. He'd known, hadn't he, that there was a chance that someone might find him if he chose that place. He'd betrayed himself. And Barton.

"Point number one," Barton says, voice pitched oddly, straining against something. "You don't have to be sorry for dying. That's dumb. You didn't die on purpose." Phil sucks a breath in through his teeth. "It's my fault, I was the one who was compromised. I was the one who told Loki – I told him, I –" Barton's voice breaks now, "I told him your weaknesses. I _missed_ when I shot at Hill, but when it came to you I couldn't do it. I'm the fucking coward here, not you. The world doesn't need me, not like you said. I'm just a," Barton stops now and laughs in a low, quiet voice that reminds Phil of days spent hiding in cramped safe houses, cracking dark jokes as they waited for the all-clear and the extraction team.

"I'm just some idiot who shoots arrows, y'know?" he snorts. “And, without you? No handler, no SHIELD – I quit, while you were gone – no nothing. I'm useless. The Avengers don't need me, SHIELD doesn't need me. Without you? I don't know what I'm doing."

Phil takes a long, deep breath.

"I need you," Barton's voice crackles, breaking in his ear, and Phil wishes that he wouldn't have written that goddamn letter, despite Fury’s plans. "I don't give a shit about the world or the greater good, they did fine without me before and they're doing swell now. So," Barton continues, voice drawing a little strength as he continues, "I'm going to go in there, and I'm going to ask Loki to trade places with you," he finishes, with confidence. "And you are going to call Natasha, and tell her what's going on, and save Darcy Lewis, and the fucking world, and take down Amora and Skurge and Loki, and be the best fucking Avenger there's ever been, because you're a hell of an asset compared to me."

"That's a stretch," Phil mutters to himself.

"As for me," Barton says suddenly, "I don’t know if – if it'll work, this time. If you'll be able to get close enough to save me. But, before, Natasha hit me on the head, cognitive recalibration, and it shocked me out of it. I don’t know if that's going to work again, but," Barton pauses, "it's okay, sir, to kill me if you have to. Make sure they know this, the rest, although I don't think they've gotten too attached to me anyways. I don't mind. It's okay. I wanted this, I wanted y – I wanted to give you the chance instead, because I'm expendable."

Another pause.

"So, good luck, sir," Barton says finally. "It's been great, I'm really glad I got to – _fuck_ – you were the best goddamn man I ever knew, Coulson, okay? And, can you tell the team…?" he trails off and a car horn sounds somewhere off to the right. "Tell them thanks. They were – I tried not to get involved, you know? But they gave me a chance, and that's more than I deserved. So yeah. Bye."

" _End of new messages. Press 7 to –"_ Phil hits the end key on the phone.

"Oh, Barton," he sighs, letting the phone fall to his side in his hand.  He should call Fury, he thinks, surrender his location and let them take him in for examination. It's standard procedure.

But he knows that Barton's keys will be in his motorcycle, and he knows that Natasha and the other Avengers will be where Amora has drawn them.

"Expendable," he shutters, and shoves the phone into his pocket.

He should do a lot of things, Phil figures. But, right now, Barton needs him most of all.

*

As Phil steps off the motorcycle in the middle of a street littered with debris and cordoned off by the police, the first person to walk up to him is the Black Widow, with a gun pointed right at his head.

"Where's Clint?" she sneers. Phil freezes and slowly raises his hands in the air.

"Cleveland, August 18th, 2003," he says calmly, and watches carefully. Natasha doesn't move for a second, but then she lowers her gun and swears.

"All clear on Coulson," she says into her communicator. “That fucking idiot," she says under her breath, refusing pointedly to let anything except rage show on her face. "He made a trade, didn’t he? Where is he?”

“I don’t know, they disappeared with the staff,” Phil says quickly. “As far as I know, Loki escaped from wherever they kept him on Asgard. He found Amora, and retrieved the staff from her. They’re in league.”

“We know,” Natasha says. “What did he do to you?”

“He used the staff to find me,” Phil says, skimming over the details. “He was…controlling me. He’s hurt, and he doesn’t have much of a clear plan, but he’s got a lot of power.”

“Clint said he was trying to kidnap people we cared about,” Natasha says. “He knew Loki wouldn’t turn down the chance to use an Avenger as leverage. How did he find you?”

“I brought us to a safehouse of mine,” Phil says. “I couldn’t hide anything from Loki, but I had just enough will left. It was the place I mentioned in my letter to him,” he says. “That stupid letter. I was supposed to be there if –“ Natasha gave him a sharp look. “Well, if Fury faked my death, as planned. I needed to let Clint know that I was alive, if he did that.”

“We’re going to talk about that later,” Natasha says. “In the meantime, we have other things to deal with.” With a glare, she turns away from Phil to mutter into her comms.

"Cap, Thor: Hawkeye is compromised, I repeat, Hawkeye is compromised," she says into her comms.

"What's the situation? Where's Stark?" Phil asks, looking to the skies above. Amora hovers above them, teasing Thor with Darcy Lewis, who is trapped in a spinning vortex of magic and smoke. On the ground, Captain America is taking a hit from Skurge the Executioner's axe, blocking it with his shield.  "And Banner?"

"Stark is, uh, on lockdown," Natasha says with a troubled look. "Bruce is there," she says, pointing to where Jasper Sitwell is clustered around a group of SHIELD agents that's holding back hesitantly. "Amora threatened to kill Darcy if he transformed. Do you remember anything?”

“It’s a distraction,” Phil says, “but from what, I’m not quite sure. I don’t know what they’re planning to do with the hostages, either. It was need to know.” Phil looks up to Thor and Amora. He watches as Thor dodges a blast of bright magic from her hand.

"Well, she's, uh, gone kind of crazy," Natasha sighs. “If Tony was here, we could handle her, but no one else can fly –"

"Sitwell," Phil calls, jogging up to him and leaving Natasha behind. Half of the SHIELD agents draw their weapons, but with a nod from Natasha, they all stand down. "Situation report," Phil commands.

“Coulson?” Jasper Sitwell says in surprise. “What the hell–?”

“I need a sitrep,” Phil says sternly. Sitwell gives him a look, but relents.

"The hostile – level 8, classification C – has taken an agent hostage, but isn't demanding anything in return. Her accomplice has been attacking the streets, causing havoc, but they seem unwilling to negotiate," Sitwell says. “Now, how did you–?”

"Can I have a comm?" Phil holds out a hand, and someone drops a headset into it. Natasha appears at his side and hands him a gun. He turns to her, asking, "Are you sure?" But she just nods once, firmly.

“I trust you,” she says quietly, an admission that scares him to death. "We need you. We need _him_ , the self-sacrificing bastard."

Before Phil can protest her misplaced trust, Natasha claps him on the shoulder and activates her Widow’s Bite, ready to rejoin Cap in the fight against Skurge.

She trusts him so easily. Phil really, _really_ wants to know what happened in Cleveland in August of 2003 for Natasha to believe him like that.

"Cap, report," he says into the radio.

"There seems to be – what the hell, is that Coulson?"

"Yes it is, report, Rogers," he says firmly, suppressing a sigh. Thor lets out a triumphant yell that rings through the comms.

"There's some kind of link between this guy and Amora," Cap grunts as he dodges a swing of the Executioner's axe. Natasha takes advantage of the momentary distraction to throw a knife. "She's controlling him somehow."

"Thor?" Phil asks. Someone hands him a pair of binoculars.

"Aye, Amora's specialties involve mind manipulation," Thor says.

"And she isn't asking for anything?" Phil asks.

Amora looks wild, her hair flying everywhere as her hands flood over with magic. Phil turns his eyes onto Darcy, who's floating weakly in the magic vortex, eyes wide with panic and tears.

"No. She seems…" Thor's voice turns troubled. "Her mind is addled, but by what, I cannot tell. There appears to be no goal to this, only our attention."

"It's not even a show,” Phil realizes. “The hostages are somewhere else.” His heart sinks as he stares through the lenses of the binoculars.

"How do you know?" Sitwell asks.

"Because," he sighs. "That's not Darcy Lewis."

Amora looks right at him as he says it, makes eye contact with Phil, and disappears from the skies. The image of Darcy disappears with her, and even Skurge is gone.

"What do you mean, that's not Darcy?" Bruce Banner asks eagerly, appearing at his elbow. He looks jittery and angry, Phil thinks. He makes an effort not to step back. "She was in public when she was kidnapped. There were witnesses, they saw Amora disappear, and the next thing we knew she was attacking people here –"

"I’m not saying that they don’t have Darcy Lewis,” Phil says. “Just that that wasn’t Darcy. It was magic," Phil explains. “Loki will keep the hostages somewhere else. He’ll use them to draw you in, but not yet. He just wants to keep you busy while he prepares.

“How can you tell? How did you know Darcy wasn’t real?” Steve asks, walking up to the cluster of agents surrounding Phil. Thor and Natasha are quick to follow, and they all stare at Phil, waiting for answers.

“Her magic isn’t working, for one thing,” Phil says. “Darcy’s image flickered. None of you caught that?" he asks incredulously.

"Without the sharp vision of Hawkeye, we are sadly at a disadvantage," Thor says sadly, "what happened to him?"

"We don't have time for this," Steve interrupts, pulling off his cowl. "We have to find Darcy."

"I'm with him," Bruce interjects.

"You can't just go running off on a wild goose chase without intel," Natasha snaps.

"Then what do you–?"

"Quiet, please," Phil snaps loudly, stepping between the Avengers. "We need to go somewhere private, to regroup," he says, and takes a deep breath. "And I'm going to tell you everything I know about Loki and Amora."

Thor opens his mouth to speak, but Phil holds up a finger.

"Which is, right now, significantly more than you."

He doesn't like the way any of them are looking at him, but he'll have to deal with that later, after they've dealt with this. After they've stopped Loki and Amora. After they’ve saved Clint.

*

Phil hasn't been in Stark Tower in months. It all seems so new to him, shiny and bright and fancy with the remodeling Stark has done. He doesn't have time to marvel at it, though, because the SHIELD helicopter lands on the pad just long enough to drop him, Steve, Banner, and Natasha off, and then they're heading into the elevator and down to the labs, Thor right behind them.

Steve types a number into a keypad urgently and pushes through the door, calling, "Tony?"

_"– of Pepper Potts. I am unavailable at the time, so please leave a message and I will return it as soon as possible."_

"Pepper," Tony Stark yells in reply to the voicemail message being played over the speakers, "why do you never pick up? It's always when it's something important. Pepper, I – never mind, the team's here, why's the team here?" Jarvis shuts off the call, and Tony turns out of a chair and gets to his feet. "What are you doing here?" he sneers.

"You can't get into contact with Pepper?" Natasha says suddenly, whipping out her phone. "I sent an extraction team over an hour ago."

"She's refusing to pick up her phone," Stark growls.

"Is he–?" Phil starts, and Banner tenses up next to him.

"Steve put the place on lockdown," he explains in a quiet voice, “He and Pepper…they broke up. He's been like this for a day or two."

Natasha swears in Russian.

"They were intercepted," she says in a dead voice. “Fifteen minutes ago."

"Is Pepper–?"

"Loki appeared on her plane," Natasha says, her voice cool and small and resigned. "I knew I should have gone myself," she whispers.

"It's not your fault," Bruce says to her, stepping forward to pat her on the shoulder. Natasha takes a slow breath and actually _lets_ him. Phil wonders what the hell he's missed.

On the other side of the lab, Steve and Stark are arguing, Stark with his hands held up defensively.

"You can take off the fucking kid gloves, Rogers, I'm an adult," Stark sneers.

"Then stop acting like a child," Steve responds, following him as he tries to evade him around the lab.

"Tony," Bruce steps away from Natasha and tries to separate him from Steve. "Steve. Stop. We aren't getting anywhere with this."

"Back off," Stark sneers at Banner, who scowls.

"Tony," Thor starts, stepping forward, "calm yourself. You are helping no one."

"You want me to calm down? I didn't ask you –"

"I know why they took Pepper and Darcy," Phil interrupts them suddenly, lifting his voice above their fighting. Natasha spins around as the others quiet. "Everyone else is too heavily protected, but there’s one person they don’t think you’ll suspect. They'll go after them next," he says once he knows their eyes are all on him.

"What do you know?" Thor asks.

"It's a long story," Phil says, reaching for a chair.

"We don't have much time," Bruce starts, but Phil holds up a hand.

"We have plenty of time," he says simply, "they won't make another move until we do. It’s the entire idea. Please. Just listen."

Phil takes a deep breath after they all sit down quietly and look at him expectantly. He's exhausted and starving, but that will all have to wait.

"I died," he begins simply. "The last thing I remember is Fury, and hoping that…" he trails off, doesn't say it. "The next thing I knew, I was alone in some dirty basement, with blood all over my shirt and the gaping hole in my chest cauterized."

"There was security feed footage of you walking out of your cryogenic chamber," Natasha says helpfully.

"That wasn't me," Phil continues. "I didn't realize it at first, until I woke up again, in a motel room I didn’t remember. There was something else controlling me, possessing me, whispering to me. But it didn't bother me, because nothing did. I wasn't worried. I knew what I was doing." They stare at him in horror.

Phil looks away, down at his hands, and brushes the pad of his thumb over each of his calluses as he speaks. "It was easy to put two and two together, though. The Chitauri spear went through my heart. The same spear that had a link to the tesseract. It…well, possessing isn't quite the right word anymore."

"There were legends," Thor interrupts in a much softer voice than usual. "Myths that the tesseract was so powerful, it developed a mind of its own."

"I think you're right," Phil nods, glancing up. "It was like something else was in here." He taps the side of his head. "It's gone now, but it was so…"

_"Can you feel that?" Loki whispered. Phil looked up from where he was wrapping a wound on Loki’s shoulder and met Loki's sparkling eyes. "In here, something…" Loki trailed off, twisting the scepter in his hands._

_"Whispering," Phil supplied. "Guiding."_

_"Yes," Loki muttered. Phil picked up the antiseptic, but Loki waved it away. "It wants something," he said under his breath. Phil knew this wasn't for him, so he ignored Loki as he spoke. "A new vessel? No…It couldn't live in_ you _, could it? And it's driving her insane..."_

"The first thing Loki did when he was freed was find Amora,” Phil says, shaking himself out of his memories and trying to focus. “She gave him the staff, and they used it to find the tesseract’s consciousness – me. Loki used the staff, and it took over Amora instead, and just in time. I was dying because of it. It had healed my wound, but it couldn’t keep me alive with that kind of strain.”

“Coulson,” Natasha starts sympathetically, but Phil shakes his head once. She changes tract quickly. “When Amora took the scepter, and you woke up, you said you were under its control. Did it have access to your memories? Would Amora – and Loki, now – have access to SHIELD intel that was inside your head?”

“Yes,” Phil says, biting his lip. “And whatever Barton knows, about SHIELD, about…all of you.” He looks around at the Avengers, made all the more vulnerable by Barton’s actions, and yet he can’t find that he’s angry at Barton.

“That explains the bomb,” Natasha says. When Phil tilts his head in a wordless question, she explains. “Amora set one of the EMP explosives we recovered from – Mombasa, was it? – awhile back. We couldn’t understand how she knew how to set it, or why she did that.”

“It must have accessed my memories,” Phil says. “I lasted for a few days on my own while it possessed me, but it was hard. Amora has a stronger body, as an Asgardian, but she’ll be driven mad by it. She’ll want to use the power, and it will corrupt her. Her mind is weak. But Loki’s is stronger. He was just beginning to latch onto the power. He was using it to control me, the same way Cl – Barton and Selvig were compromised.”

“How does the cube work?” Steve says, brow furrowing.

“As far as I can remember,” Phil says, glancing at Thor in case he has knowledge Phil doesn’t, “the consciousness is centered in the physical form of the tesseract itself. It can leave it, inhabit human souls and bodies, and give them power. Or, it can control people, crush their will. It can read your mind, and you can read _it_ , use it to learn things from whomever you control. But it comes at a price. If you use the scepter, you are under the tesseract’s influence, despite how much _you_ are the one who wishes to be in control. When the Chitauri created the scepter, they made it a tool to channel magic. But Loki, he used the scepter to manipulate the cube’s power and draw from it. He changed its very nature.”

“The tesseract is raw power,” Thor says. “It is just as we have feared. Power without a conscience. Power without control.”

“And Loki thinks he can control it,” Natasha frowns.

“Amora will, as well,” Thor says. “If she has been under the tesseract’s influence since she activated the staff, then she has had plenty of time. It is likely she appeared to Loki on Asgard and bargained with him, right under the All-Father’s nose. They have created an alliance, forged under the will of the tesseract.”

“Do you know what Loki and Amora want?” Steve asks. “It’s likely that the cube wants something similar.”

“My hand is merely a whim,” Thor says, a troubled look upon his face. “What Amora truly craves is power. She wishes to have the position that I come with, my power as prince and, one day, king of Asgard. Loki wants the same.”

"But why take Darcy and Pepper?" Bruce asks.

"Because of Loki’s plan," Phil explains. "I know you said he wants power, but what does he want right _now_ , more than anything?"

"Fame and fortune?" Stark snorts with crossed arms. Somehow, Steve has forced a glass of water into his hands, but he's still far from sober.

"Vengeance," Natasha says. Phil nods.

"So he takes what we love. Who we care about," Steve says. “He doesn’t just want power, he wants bloodshed, this time. He wants to break us for what we did to him.”

“So he takes Pepper,” Phil says, nodding at Tony, "Darcy," to Bruce, who blushes, but it's obvious, even though Phil's only been around him for an hour. "Barton," he says quietly. Natasha meets his eye. “He has almost everyone he needs to keep our team worried and desperate. That’s what Loki wants. That’s what the tesseract wants. Us, confused and vulnerable, so they can make their move.”

"How would Loki know to pick them, though?" Bruce wonders aloud. "How would he know…our hearts?"

"We all handled the tesseract," Natasha points out. “Even if we didn't touch it, we were all around it. If it's the tesseract's will as much as Loki's, and it wants what he wants, it'll want revenge on each of us."

"But that's not all of us," Steve says, crossing his arms protectively in front of his chest. "No offense, but I don't love Darcy or Pepper. They're nice ladies, but I barely know them."

"I said they would wait for our move," Phil interrupts, catching Natasha's eye in a silent question. She nods. "The last one will be one of us. Well, one of you, or else they wouldn't have let me go," he adds in a quiet voice. He should be relieved, he knows, but it would have been too easy for Loki to double cross Barton. Phil looks from Steve, who looks horrified, to the others in turn. Bruce's frown goes even deeper than Thor's.

"Well," Tony sighs, chugging the rest of his water glass and setting it down with a sigh. "If no one else is going to say it, I will. Clint and Rogers are the ones unaccounted for, right?" he claps his hands together sloppily, refusing to look at Steve. "I'm sorry, Natasha, but you're going to have to keep a low profile here –"

" _Me_?" she says incredulously, "Clint's brain is the one the tesseract is picking for your love lives. Clint, who’s been living here for weeks, and knows us all. Coulson wouldn't even be here if it were really trying to get revenge on _Clint_ anymore. It doesn’t want me. It's you it wants, Stark."

"Me?" Tony laughs, a panicked, drunken giggle slipping out. “Why would it – why would anyone – want _me_?"

There follows an awkward silence, to which Phil feels like an invader.

No one knows what to say, until Steve stands up and says in a hoarse, quiet voice, "I'll get you more water and some ibuprofen." He grabs Tony's glass and retreats to a corner of the lab that they seem to be using as a makeshift kitchen.

"I think I would be having some kind of a personal crisis," Tony says, "if I wasn't trying to wrap my mind around the fact that Clint is in love with Coulson." And then he slumps over onto the table and hides his head underneath his arms. "God fucking damn it, I hate all of you," he mutters into the countertop. "I need to be so much more drunk for this.”

"The water will help with that," Steve says, and, yeah, that's it, when this is all over, Phil is going to make someone (Barton, hopefully) sit down and catch him up with _what the hell is going on_.

"Okay, yeah, over that," Tony says, staring at the glass of water. In an uncharacteristically quiet voice, he asks, "What the fuck is going on?"

"We need a plan of attack," Steve says, ignoring him.

"Uh, okay, you unlock the suits and I'll shoot them all to hell," Tony snaps back.

Steve growls, "You're in no state –"

"– Who else can –?"

“QUIET!” Phil shouts suddenly. They all look at him, everyone but Natasha surprised. “We need to destroy the tesseract.”

“It is impossible,” Thor said, a troubled look on his face.

“Nothing’s impossible,” Bruce started slowly. “Who created the tesseract, Thor? What is it, exactly?”

“Dangerous,” Thor says cryptically. “It has powers even the All-Father does not dare to wield. It will not be easy to break.”

“It’s a power source,” Tony says, staring into the distance and tapping absently on his chest. “All power sources run out eventually. There’s gotta be a way to use the energy up.”

“Yes, but you cannot control the energy without wielding the tesseract,” Thor protests. “If I used the power, even just to shatter the cube, it would corrupt me. It would use me to destroy. It would win.”

“Not if the tesseract’s consciousness is elsewhere,” Phil says suddenly, looking up at Thor. “It isn’t aware of the cube when it’s possessing someone. If we can distract whoever that is, we can keep it at bay, until it’s too late.”

“That sounds great,” Natasha sighs, “until you realize that whoever it’s possessing will be destroyed by the consciousness.”

“Loki?” Phil says with a forced nonchalance. “He didn’t seem to have any qualms about stabbing _me_.” Natasha nods in reluctant agreement.

“You cannot destroy Loki ,” Thor says. “While his actions in the past were inexcusable, he is out of his mind. You cannot blame him for that. You cannot kill him for it.”

“Can’t I?” Phil says quietly. “Or did my life mean nothing?”

No one says a word for a long moment. It goes ticking by in Phil’s head, a moment that they aren’t fighting, that Loki has Barton and Amora has the others.

“You said that the cube’s consciousness is connected to its physical form,” says Bruce. If you injure Loki,” Bruce said slowly, “it might flee to the cube for safety. If it can be destroyed in a mortal host, it will retreat to safety. To the cube. Won’t it?”

“Yes,” Phil answers. “As far as I know, unless it has another host to transfer to, it will go back to the cube. That’s Loki and Amora, right now. If we knock out one, the tesseract’s consciousness will be confined to the other.”

“If we can time our actions simultaneously, hope may not be lost,” Thor says thoughtfully.

“But is that possible?” Bruce asks. “Can we defeat Loki again?” Tony sighs.

“We’re the goddamn Avengers,” he says, glaring forward. “We did it once. I think we can manage.”

“Fine,” Steve says, looking to Thor. “We’ll track down Loki. Thor, you go up to Asgard. Will Heimdall be able to see Loki, so that you know when to destroy the cube?”

“Nay, not if Loki wishes to hide himself,” Thor says, shaking his head. “But he _will_ be able to see us. We will not hide ourselves from him.”

“Then you’ll go up to Asgard, and wait for our signal,” Steve says to Thor. He turns to Bruce. “Can you track down Loki with the signal from the scepter?” he asks. “You did it before.”

Bruce nods, pulling his glasses from his pocket. “It’ll take a few hours,” he says, “I might have to go through SHIELD, but I can trace it.”

“I’ll help,” says Tony, standing up.

“No,” Steve stops him with a hand on his arm. “ _You_ are staying here. On lockdown.”

Tony spits, “Don’t. Touch. Me.”

Steve lets go of Tony’s arm as if burned, but he doesn’t back away.

“Tony,” Bruce says softly. “Listen to Steve. I can handle this.”

“Natasha, you and I can oversee SHIELD’s recovery of the hostages while we’re waiting for Loki’s location,” Steve continues.

“Keep me updated,” says Bruce. He leaves the table and heads to his workstation on the other side of the lab, pulling up holograms and scans to observe.

“When we get the information, we can all move in together,” Steve says. “But we’ll need more intel,” he looks to Natasha.

“SHIELD will give us everything we need,” she says. “We have their servers.”

“Good,” Steve nods. “Let’s—“

“What about me?” Phil interrupts finally. It’s been amazing to see the Avengers work like this, led by Captain America himself, just as Phil had planned with Fury for a very long time. The team isn’t exactly as they imagined, but it’s even more determined. Phil is proud, or he would be, if worry wasn’t eating away at his stomach.

“You’ve been through a lot,” Steve says, a hidden ‘You died, Agent Coulson, leave it to us,’ in his voice.

“I’m fine,” Phil protests. “I just need a little rest, some food. I know things about Loki’s workings, about the tesseract, that none of you can know. You need my help.” It’s not quite a lie, but Phil doesn’t want to be spared because they think he’s fragile.

“Fine,” Steve says, but Phil knows he doesn’t like it, that he mistrusts Phil for some reason. At any other time, Phil would take that personally. Now? He almost agrees with the Captain.

“That’s good enough for me,” says Natasha. "Let's get to work."

She stands up, leading the way for Steve, Phil, and Thor to follow her out of the lab. Bruce is already caught in his calculations and equipment.

“You guys go ahead of me, I’ll join you in a minute,” Steve says in a quiet voice to Natasha. He turns forlornly back to Tony, who is sitting alone at the table, clutching his glass of water in his hand like he might throw it at someone.

“You sure?” Natasha asks. Steve nods once.

He gets into the elevator with Natasha and Thor, a determined and sobered silence over them all. Phil feels helpless, stuck useless in the tower while they wait to find out where the hostages are. Where Loki and Amora are.

Where Barton is.

“Thor!” Jane Foster calls out as the elevator doors swing open, revealing the living room.

Jane looks windswept and panicked, followed by a few SHIELD agents whom Phil doesn’t recognize. They’re carrying a few suitcases filled with her equipment. He figures they’re keeping her in protective custody in the tower, probably at her own request.

Jane runs across the room and embraces Thor, then steps back and stares up at him.

“Where’s Darcy? Is she okay? What’s going on?” she asks.

"We are trying to find her,” Thor explains. “I must go to Asgard," he says, somewhat apologetically. “I will not be back for…some time.” He swallows.

“What are you talking about?” Jane asks, crossing her arms angrily.

"It's the tesseract," he says, "it's controlling Loki and our friends. I must destroy it and save them."

“You’ll be trapped again,” says Jane, eyes burning like fire. “The tesseract powers the Bifrost. How can you just leave us like that?”

"I love you, Jane, but I cannot let our friends die," Thor says finally. Jane looks down at her feet, clenches her fists, and takes a deep breath.

"Then I'm coming with you," she says. "I have my emergency suitcase, I have some of my research, and I'm ready."

"Jane–" Natasha starts, stepping forward, but she holds out a hand to stop her in her tracks.

"I'm going," she says. “The technology they have on Asgard…it could revolutionize our world. By the time they fix the Bifrost, I’ll have enough information that I could use to change everything.”

“There is no guarantee that we will be able to fix the Bifrost,” Thor says. “And, even if we do, it may be years, Jane. Know what you are sacrificing.”

“I’ve been studying Einstein-Rosen bridges for years,” Jane says firmly. “Who knows, maybe _I’ll_ be the one to fix the Bifrost.”

Thor smiles weakly at that.

“If you are certain,” he says. Jane leans up to kiss him on the cheek.

“Ma’am,” a SHIELD agent says as Jane attempts to take the boxes filled with her equipment, “we have been instructed not to let you leave this tower.”

“Yeah?” Jane laughs, a little hysterically as the realization of her decision begins to hit her. “You and what army?”

Phil steps forward to tell the agents to let it go, but Natasha sets a hand on his shoulder.

“Stand down,” she commands them. “Your services are no longer needed. You can leave.”

One of the agents opens his mouth to argue, but one glance from Natasha and they all exit the room in silence.

Jane gathers up her things and turns to Natasha in thanks.

“Tell Darcy…” she says, then sighs. “I know you’ll find her,” Jane says with a worried frown. Phil can see she’s holding back tears. “Tell her I’m sorry I had to go. She was a good intern. And that she can have free reign of my wardrobe until I get back, but if she gets anything on my blue sweater, she’s toast.”

“Farewell, my friends,” Thor says, smiling sadly as he tilts his head respectfully at Natasha and Phil. “May we meet again soon.”

With that, Thor leads Jane out onto the balcony, helping her carry her equipment. He raises his hammer towards the skies, and shouts to Heimdall, calling down a vortex of clouds and light. The Bifrost, the magical funnel Phil hasn’t seen since New Mexico, engulfs the Stark Tower helipad and takes Thor and Jane with it.

"Well," Phil says faintly, breaking the awed silence. "It seems like I've missed a lot." Natasha smiles at Phil out of the corner of his eye, but it doesn’t last.

"What do we do now?" she asks, looking out at the city below them. "Wait?"

“Not as long as Loki has three hostages,” Phil says. “We should go looking for them.”

“Don’t jump the gun, we still don’t know where they are,” Natasha reminds him. “I know you want to look for him, but we can’t jump in until we know what’s going on.” She sighs. “God, you are _so_ like Clint sometimes.”

Phil opens his mouth to protest, but Natasha punches him in the arm. He freezes as she pulls him into a hug, but he accepts it, squeezing her gently. When she pulls away, she’s staring at Phil like a ghost.

“You look more shocked than Barton,” Phil says, at a loss of how to respond to Natasha’s sudden display of emotion. He didn’t know she cared that much.

“You’re an idiot. He’s an idiot,” she grumbles. “He never gave up hope on you,” she says. “He took the first clue he heard and stuck on it. You know how he is.”

Phil’s stomach tightens at the information. “But you…”

“I thought you were dead,” Natasha shrugs. “I’ve thought a lot of people were dead,” she says, “maybe one day, they’ll come back to me, too. Until then, there’s nothing I can do.”

“Barton isn’t dead yet,” says Phil firmly. “We still have a chance to save him.”

“Now, that’s the Coulson I know,” Nick Fury says, striding into the room.

Phil has seen Fury in many different moods. He’s seen him angry, sad, disappointed, all of these and more. Sometimes he tries to hide his rage, other times, he lets it boil over. Phil has known Fury for years. He’s had time to learn his moods.

This time, Fury’s expression is unreadable. Phil bristles a little.

"Sir—" he starts.

"It's good to have you back, Cheese," Fury says, cracking a smile. He walks up to Phil and shakes his hand. Phil gets it, suddenly. Fury is here to see him with his own eyes.

“It’s good to be back, sir,” Phil says.

"I suppose you have a reasonable explanation for accepting his story from the get-go, Romanoff?" Fury asks, turning to Natasha, who nods sharply.

"Yes," she says simply. Fury doesn't seem to question it at all. Phil can't help but feel a little proud of how far Natasha has come since he and Barton first met her.

“I apologize for breaking protocol,” Phil says suddenly, “but I had to –“

“I know what you thought you had to do,” Fury sighs, staring Phil in the eye like he doesn’t quite believe he’s back. “You think you have to do a lot of things, sometimes.”

They stare at each other for a long moment, Phil daring Nick to blink first, to show his hand, but he doesn’t.

“We can have this talk later,” Phil says firmly. “After this is all over. But first, I’m fighting this fight.

"Then you two better suit up," Fury says.

*

Natasha takes him down to her room. Apparently, she has her own floor, as do the other Avengers, now. Phil doesn’t ask to see Barton’s, although he’d like to. If Barton’s team is anything to judge by, he’s found a home here, where he belongs, where he’s happy – but Phil just needs to _know._

The stash of weaponry Natasha keeps hidden in her room is…well, interesting, to say the least. She has everything from knives to big guns, even though it's not all strictly her style. She disappears a few moments after she shows him her cache, but he doesn't mind. Phil goes for the basics and waits patiently for Natasha to return. When she does, she's carrying something.

"The suit you’re wearing is, uh," she says apologetically, gesturing to it. It's ripped and torn, definitely not suited for another mission (excuse the pun).

"Fine," Phil says, taking the SHIELD uniform she’s holding. "I haven't worn one of these since…" he trails off, remembering that that memory was just Barton and him, before they met Natasha.

"Are you up for this?" Natasha asks him quietly as he unfolds the uniform with a scrutinizing eye.

"Of course," he says, "we've been on ops like this before. Dozens of them."

"Not like this," she replies softly. "Nothing like this. A few hours ago, you were…" she takes a deep breath. "I guess what I'm asking is, do you think your judgment is compromised?"

"By _what_ , exactly?" Phil snaps defensively, turning to her, “You sent Barton into battle right after he recovered, didn't you?"

"Yes, but that was different."

"How?" Phil glares.

She has no answer for him. At least, not one she's willing to share.

"It's not a question of ability," she says carefully, "I've seen you face things a hell of a lot scarier and harder than this. It's Clint."

"You said my judgment –"

"What I meant is that you’re _emotionally compromised_ ,” Natasha says stonily. She allows him a moment for the words to sink in, then continues.

“If you had to do it,” she asks, “if you hat to kill him, could you face that? Could you do it?” Natasha looks at Phil, eyes shining, and he knows what her answer would be if he asked that of her. In a heartbeat.

But that’s the thing. He’s no Black Widow. He’s not a killer. Phil never has been.

When it comes down to it, he knows what he would do.

"If we pull this off, I won't have to," he answers. Natasha seems to take it at face value.

They’re interrupted by Jarvis, informing them that Dr. Banner has a call for them.

“I’m tracing for them right now,” Bruce says, “and I’ve been able to rule out a few places, but it’s still slow going. If they can teleport, they could be anywhere. They might not even be on Earth anymore.”

“How long?” Phil asks.

“At least a few hours,” Bruce says. “I’ve…written a new algorithm that should work. It should be faster than our previous method.”

“Can we wait that long?” Natasha says, glancing at Phil. “Do you know where they might go?”

“I don’t know,” Phil says. His voice sounds empty to his own ears.

“Keep us updated,” Natasha responds, and Bruce ends the call. She turns to Phil. "You're exhausted," she says. "You should get some sleep."

"But –"

"God, you are just as much as a petulant child as you were before you died," she sighs, "I have a bed. You can use it. You'll be safe."

"You can talk," Phil mutters under his breath, but he buries his face in his hands. "I just don't know if I can sleep. Not after…"

Natasha has never been close with him, at least not by Phil's standards. Sure, she's worked with him, trusted him, saved his life, and they’ve become friends, but she never seemed to look at him and look past the man who'd ordered Barton to take the shot. _It was the right call,_ she'd said to him once, _don't beat yourself up over it. I'm a different person now than I was then._

"It's okay," she says quietly, stepping up closer to him. "Coulson, it's okay to be worried about him. It's okay to be afraid for him."

It feels so _wrong_ , because Barton is supposed to be the one who Natasha comforts, and Barton is supposed to be the one here trying to defeat Loki with the Avengers while Phil is under Loki’s control.

"I’m not afraid for him," Phil says, voice barely above a whisper. "I know I should be." He closes his eyes. "But I'm just afraid _of_ him."

When he opens his eyes, there's pity on Natasha's face, unmasked and uncontrolled. She places a hand on his arm to usher him back towards her bed.

"Get some rest," she just says, "it's okay to be afraid."

She leaves him in the darkened bedroom.

Phil knows he won’t be able to sleep, but he stares up at the ceiling. He breathes slowly, in and out, trying to forget about how it felt to have the tesseract press down on his mind.

"I, I can remember. Standing, by the wall," he hums under his breath.

"And we kissed, as though nothing could fall."

Phil isn't all that surprised when he sits up slowly and meets Barton's glowing blue eyes. He's curled up against the wall of a nameless warehouse, cement and cold and dampness all around them. His fingers drum against his kneecaps, which are hugged to his chest.

"I thought you might try to get some rest while they tried to find me, sir," he says simply, staring away now, down at his hands. "I remembered what you said, about wishing. I thought the song might help." Phil takes a deep breath and forces away the panic. Barton swallows.

"I remember when we were in Burma, and you relapsed – sorry, sir," he winces when Phil flinches. “Aterwards, when we were back on base, I walked past your office and I saw you, lying on your couch. And I thought if I just walked by, I wouldn't have to deal with it; I could pretend you were just sleeping. But I knew you never slept on your couch, if you could help it. So I went in."

"I usually don't make a habit of having panic attacks at work," Phil says, throat swelling up uncomfortably.

"Nobody's perfect," Barton shrugs. "I didn't think the song would help. But it did."

"I like the song," Phil says carefully.

"You know what Natasha told me?" Barton laughs bitterly now, "that it comforted you, because every op, every other day, I'd play or sing that song, and you were comforted by that. By me."

"Why did you call me here?" Phil says, because he really, really doesn't want to talk about this. Not now, not ever, and certainly not when Loki is picking at Barton's brains.

"You said you weren't a hero," Barton says randomly. "In your letter. That's bullshit, sir."

"I'm not a hero," Phil protests, "I'm just a –"

"You fucking _died_ , okay?" Barton says, and he sounds a little panicked by it all. He takes a deep breath. "Not a hero? Yeah, right."

There is a crash somewhere in the distance, something that makes Barton jump and look around nervously. "I don’t have much time," he says quickly.

"Then stop wasting it," Phil snaps.

"I meant what I said," Barton, "don't be afraid of hurting me. You have to stop them. Stop it. I can't tell you anything else," he taps his head and smiles wryly, "but there are gaps. Holes, that weren't there last time. I think something –" Barton flinches and gasps.

"Barton?" Phil says urgently as Barton buries his head in his hands, gasping in pain.

"I can't," he gasps, curling himself into a ball. Helpless, Phil carefully crawls over to him and puts a hand around Barton's back.

"It's going to be okay," he says, as Barton leans into him, rocking back and forth as some kind of pain shocks through his body. "Breathe. Please breathe," he says, "come on, Clint, you're going to be fine."

Barton looks up, startled, and stares at him, his vivid blue eyes shining with pain and shock.

"You called me Clint," he says in a broken voice, and Phil starts. "You've never called me by my – the western docks, number 56," he gasps, and his eyes open wide, flaring with piercing blues and greens and make Phil's heart jump in his chest as he mutters to Barton to soothe him.

And then Barton is screaming in pain, leaving him, and the dream fades into the dark silence of Natasha's room.

Phil sits straight up in Natasha's bed. There's no way he's going to get any sleep, not now. He thinks back to Natasha, back to her coolness, her survival instinct, and then to Barton. _It was the right call,_ she said.

"No," he mutters to himself, standing up suddenly. _Western docks. 56._ Phil looks at the SHIELD uniform, at the weapons he's chosen, and stops. "No." Guns are what got him into this mess in the first place.

"Jarvis?" he says hesitantly, knowing that Stark's robotic butler is always listening. "Where's Stark?" There is a pause before the clipped voice replies.

"He has been escorted to his room by Captain Rogers,” Jarvis says. "For his own safety, he is not to leave."

"Can I visit him?" asks Phil. There is another pause.

"There is nothing restraining you from visiting," Jarvis supplies, "although Agent Romanoff is just down the hallway from you, talking to Dr. Banner." And, wow, Stark really must be a genius, considering the intuitiveness of this robot.

"Thanks," Phil says faintly, and turns to leave quietly. "Oh," he says, stopping, "can you find any suits in my size?"

"One can be sent up to Sir's suite if you are planning on a discreet visit," Jarvis says.

"I wouldn't want it to be much trouble–"

"It is already programmed into protocol," Jarvis supplies, and Phil nods and tries not to think of how Stark had planned a clothing retrieval system into the Tower for his one night stands when he'd built it.

"Thank you," Phil says once again, and, empty handed, moves to sneak out of Natasha's room. It's not hard, she's distracted by Bruce, and Phil is a practiced agent, but she _is_ the Black Widow. Phil finds the elevator and rides up to Stark's floor.

He hesitates outside the door, then knocks, twice.

"I said, I do not want to fucking talk to you, Rogers, you son of a bitch. I don’t care if you give me the puppy dog eyes and say it's for my own good, this is –"

"It's me," Phil says, and Tony stops. After a long moment, the door clicks open and Tony appears, looking tired and upset.

"Come in," he sighs, and Phil does, shutting the door behind him. "I'd offer you a drink, but someone took all of–"

"That's not why I’m here," Phil holds up a hand, and Tony turns around. "I'm going after Cl – Barton. Alone.”

“You’re an idiot,” says Tony. “Or do you not remember what happened last time you went up against a demigod alone?”

“This is different,” Phil says, “it’s…personal.”

Tony scrutinizes Phil for a long moment.

"What do you want from me?" Tony says, "Bruce is still figuring out where–"

"I know where he is," Phil says simply, "but I need your help. No one else will–"

"No one else will understand," Tony says briefly, a faraway look going into his eyes. "Okay." He sighs. "Fine. Against my better judgment, I’ll help you. Do you have a plan? Or are you just winging it?”

"I'm sorry to have to bring this up," Phil says apologetically, "but, there were plans in Stark Industries…a weapon that was made, that caused temporary paralysis to everyone within hearing range." Tony stiffens a little and he crosses his arms.

"I destroyed all of those plans," he says, "unethical. Destroyed all the prototypes, too. Couldn't produce them, anyways, it was –"

"Stark," Phil says slowly, "I can't just kill him." And Tony sighs, deflating a little, and walks over to the wall. He opens a hidden pad and types in a code. He lets it scan his eyes and fingerprint, and then a section of the wall opens, revealing a few gadgets that Phil vaguely remembers as rejected Stark Industries prototypes.

Tony picks out one particular gadget and hands it over, with two earplugs. Phil holds out his hand.

"When you're done using this," Tony says sternly, "it goes back to me. Got it? I wouldn't even –" Tony stops himself from talking, a rare moment, and takes a deep breath. "Clint's a good guy. You're a lucky man."

"Oh, no, we're not," Phil starts, but Stark waves his hands.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, not like he exchanged his life for yours or anything," he says, "just saying, don't knock it. It's rare, you know, to find someone who really gives a shit. And when you go and tell them to fuck off, you're digging yourself into your own gra – oh, fuck, I'm shutting up now," Tony mutters. "Jarvis sent your suit up five minutes ago, it's on the bed. Change and leave, please, before I start sounding like Pepper." He moans again.

"Pepper cares about you a lot," Phil says as he changes quickly. "Just because she broke up doesn't mean –"

"I forgot you were best buds," Tony says, "please, for the love of god, can you–"

"I'll get her back safely," Phil promises, cutting off whatever Tony has to say. "And Stark," he calls, and Tony turns. "One foot in front of the other. One step at a time."

He slips out into the hall and silently shuts the door behind him.

*

The streets blur before Phil’s eyes as he travels the busy streets of New York in the car he borrowed from Tony. He heads towards the warehouse where he knows from Barton that Loki and Amora are waiting for him. He doesn’t turn on the radio, doesn’t think about the Avengers or answer the ringing communicator that he took, he just sits and thinks as he drives.

_“This is the weirdest fucking op ever,” Barton said as he toweled off in Phil’s makeshift office inside a tiny trailer. “Who is that guy, anyways? King Arthur? The hammer and the stone?”_

_“That was the sword and the stone,” Phil added thoughtfully as he slipped out of his soaking wet jacket. There wasn’t much space as they changed back to back, with the sound of the rain still hitting the trailer roof keeping them company._

_“Whatever you say, sir,” Barton said. There was an awkward pause as he slipped on a new pair of pants and began to button up his shirt. Barton stood there, wringing out his t-shirt with his hands, and Phil watched him swing it around out of the corner of his eye._

_“Sir,” he started slowly, and Phil stiffened. “Why did you transfer?” he asked._

_“Fury needed me in California,” he lied, “someone has to keep an eye on Stark.”_

_“I thought that was Nat’s job,” Barton replied quickly._

_“It is now,” Phil shrugged. “But I’m useful there.”_

_“Which is why you neglected Stark so you could study the data coming in for this op,” Barton spat back, and then stopped in his tracks. “I’ve been talking to Sitwell. This op is your baby. And you didn’t need a sniper, not really, not_ me _. You called me off vacation for this, and I haven’t even shot anything.”_

_“Barton—“_

_“I miss working with you, Coulson,” he said suddenly. “We made a good team.”_

_“Barton, I couldn’t—“_

_“That’s bullshit, and we both know it,” Barton snapped. Phil straightened his tie and turned to face him._

_“I can’t, Barton,” he said finally, pushing past him and grabbing an umbrella on the way to the door. The rain was quieter, softer, leaving him with nothing but roaring in his ears._

_“I’m sorry,” he said finally, and burst out of the door and into the night._

Phil takes a deep breath and shakes himself back to the present. He’s here.

“Heimdall, Thor,” he says, looking up to the skies as Thor always does before he calls down the Bifrost. “If you’re looking for a signal to begin, this would be it.”

The warehouse is dirty and old, deserted and covered in rust colored stains and chipped paint. Phil doesn't try to keep his approach a secret, just stops the borrowed car and walks up to the warehouse. The doors are chained shut, but it doesn't take him long to find a single broken window and climb through into the dimly lit warehouse.

He knows that he's walking into a trap.

He glances around the warehouse, examining the place for exits and entrances, weak points and hiding spaces. There aren’t any boxes or boards, just empty, dusty concrete. Phil stands in the center of the place and waits.

The Executioner, Skurge, is the first. He’s a big man, bigger than Phil has ever fought.

“Leave, now,” he growls.

“I’d like to talk to your boss,” Phil says, but Skurge squares up and growls, _actually growls_ at Phil, waving his axe in his hands like a batter about to hit a baseball. Phil takes a step forward, opening his mouth to continue. Skurge swings and misses.

He’s all axe and power and no finesse. Skurge seems distracted, and it’s easy for Phil to dodge his swipes. He punches as hard as he can, but Phil is significantly smaller than the Asgardian.

“This isn’t necessary,” Phil says, but he doesn’t stop fighting. Neither does Skurge.

“Of course it is,” the Executioner grunts, another swipe of the axe going wide. Phil ducks around his axe and twists, kicking his wrist hard enough that it breaks.

“It’s your hospital bill,” Phil shrugs.

Skurge howls in pain, dropping the axe, and Phil takes advantage of his momentary distraction to knee him in the groin. When Skurge ducks, Phil punches him hard enough in the jaw that he falls down with a great crash, out cold.

Phil steps away from him and turns around warily, looking for his next opponent.

Amora is the next to make an appearance, her hair flying and hands sparking with fading magic as she ambushes him.

“Die, mortal,” she says, her voice shaking as she tries to throw a spell at Phil. He dodges it easily enough.

“Is that the best you’ve got?” Phil huffs.

Amora roars and shoots sparks at him, green and gold. They flicker and fade before they even touch Phil.

“I _will_ kill you!” she screams desperately, rushing at Phil with her own two hands. Phil sees the panic and fear in her eyes, though.

It’s easy to get close to her, to take her down with a few carefully placed punches. She falls to the ground, unconscious, all of the fight drained out of her.

“Will you?” he mutters, poking her with his shoe.

Phil steps away from the unconscious bodies of Skurge and Amora, and stands back warily. He doesn’t know what to expect next. The warehouse still seems dark and empty, with nowhere to hide except the rafters and the magic that Loki and Amora used to hide themselves.

Loki melts into the air out of the darkness, already in his typical costume (minus the helmet), his hair wild around his face. It's his eyes that draw in Phil, however.

They’re bright and glowing, a sickly blue-green color that highlights the shadowed paleness of Loki’s face.

Loki claps for him, grinning brightly as he strolls closer, feet away from Phil. The sound of his applause echoes eerily in the warehouse.

"Well done," he says, his clapping fading away. "You have truly proved yourself. Congratulations."

"Where's the prize?" Phil says dryly, but he can barely find it within himself to speak. He remembers the last time he faced Loki…the sinister, careless gait as he walked away, leaving Phil lying on the ground, bleeding out, the shock and pain and sharp coolness of the blade –

"I don't think you've earned one," Loki laughs, his voice echoing in the warehouse. It brings Phil back, back to the present, back to Earth.

"Haven't I?" Phil says, and Loki stops in front of him. He's not carrying the scepter, not carrying a single weapon, and Phil squints at him.

"Not yet," Loki says, and lunges.

Phil dodges him and punches him in the stomach, but Loki shrugs off the blow and begins to laugh again. Fighting Loki is like dancing, almost. He's not a warrior, but he's fluid, quick, and strong. Phil dodges and punches and kicks, uses Loki's weight as leverage and his quick motions to trip him up.

Loki doesn’t use his magic, but he takes advantage of Phil’s slowness to grab him from behind and attempt to choke him. Phil fights him off, flipping him over onto his back on the floor, and kicks him before Loki attempts to bring Phil down with him. They wrestle like animals, fighting with nothing but their fists and wits.

Long minutes pass; Phil has a bloody lip, Loki has to have at least one cracked rib, and that's when Phil notices the change.

It's tiny, miniscule, something in the way Loki holds himself as he dives forward, almost like he's holding back. He's guarded and wary, ready for Phil to pull out a knife or a gun, waiting for him. Watching for something.

As Phil blocks a hit, he sees it in Loki's eyes. Fear. Wild and crazy fear, as he saw in Amora. Loki has lost his control, and his weapons, and…his immortality.

There's his strength, yes, in his push and blunt force,  and there's his speed, but there is no skill in Loki's fighting. There is vulnerability in the way he pulls back, the way he flinches when Phil moves his hand towards his belt in a feint to see if Loki is paying attention. Of course, the gods could always die, but if Loki is worried about injury, than he has become less than a god.

Phil smiles, feints as though he’s reaching for a gun, and takes Loki down while he’s distracted. He ends the fight with a quick blow to the head – not a fatal one, although his fingers itch for revenge – but sharp.

When Loki falls, his eyes lock with Phil's for a moment, filled with relief. Phil looks down at his body as it crumples to the floor, wishing he could kick and spit on it, but all Phil feels for Loki is pity. He hates himself for it.

Phil turns back to look at his fallen opponents…Amora, Skurge, and finally Loki, the three Asgardians, defeated in battle. He looks up, around the warehouse, searching for something.

"You know they were far from fair fights," Phil calls out loudly. His voice echoes back to him in the warehouse. "You can't judge a man on that."

"I know how well you can fight."

Phil looks up instinctively.

A rope appears from the darkened rafters, and a figure slides down, landing feet away from Phil.

Barton.

"I know," Phil says. He takes a deep, slow breath. "Where's Pepper? Darcy? Safe and sound, somewhere far away? You never intended on hurting them, did you?"

Barton takes a step closer and crosses his arms, eyes narrowed to glowing blue slits. He holds the scepter in one hand, glowing just as brightly as his eyes. It flickers once and Phil thinks of Thor, away on Asgard.

"Loki did," he shrugs, stepping forward, "Loki had a lot of plans I didn't agree with. All of them, in fact." Barton opens a hand and ticks off each finger as he speaks, "Kidnapping, murder, vengeance, war, and something about ending up ruler of the universe, although he never really seemed to think that one through." Barton chuckles, but the sound echoes back all wrong, warped and twisted by the concrete walls.

"And there was Fury, too," Barton continues, taking steps slowly towards Phil, who doesn't move a muscle. "He wanted power, but he didn't know what he was doing. Neither did Stark, or the Red Skull, or…well, that's ancient history."

Phil squints at Barton, a few steps away from him.

“You figured it out,” Barton says, a smile tugging at his lips. “I was worried when Loki let you go, to be honest. I thought you’d ruin everything before I could get things into motion.”

“I told them Loki and Amora’s plans,” Phil says.

“Of course,” Barton scoffs. He waves a hand in the direction of their unconscious forms. “But they were always doomed to fail. They didn’t know what they were getting into when they took the tesseract.” His expression turns stony. “None of them did.”

“I bet Odin knew,” Phil says, playing for time. “That’s why he kept you locked away for so long.”

“Yes,” Barton nods, tapping his fingers against the scepter. “Buuuut, it’s easy to draw the eye when you have power. All it takes is one greedy guard, and then you’re home free.”

“So, what do you want?” Phil asks. “A body? Is that it?”

"Oh, not him," Barton says, gesturing over his body with a hand. "He's nothing. Convenient, maybe."

"But you want a form," Phil says, and the words come out dead. Barton starts laughing then, voice high and twisted, nothing like his laugh.

"Sure, if that's what you call this," he takes a step towards Phil and leers. "They don't last long. You were a test drive, conveniently enough. My first." Barton begins to circle him as he talks, bouncing the scepter against the ground a few times. "The woman, Amora, she was convenient, too, but I never planned on using him," he angles his chin at Loki, then leaves Phil's side to stand over the unconscious demi-god. "Didn’t take well to losing his immortality to me, but it’s hard to find hosts who can hold me. It’s even more rare to find ones who can fight me."

"So you've noticed," Phil says as Barton uses the scepter to nudge Loki's head. It flops to the side, still but for his shallow breathing.

"Are you going to try to bargain, too?" Barton says finally, turning to him once more. "It's not going to work. I don't want you. I never wanted you. There's something…different about you. Clint has heart."

"Someone stabbed mine," Phil says, and Barton looks down at the scepter in his hand.

"That's not what I meant. Living – living takes heart. It takes feeling, it takes carelessness. Life doesn’t want you to wait around for millenia, waiting for the right moment. Life takes action. Clint Barton lived like that,” the tesseract says through Barton’s lips. “I need more people like him. I could burn through a million, a trillion bodies, an army of hosts,” Barton laughs. “I have so much power – I _am_ power – and one vessel isn’t nearly enough,” he whispers. “I want more.”

"That really doesn't matter,” Phil says. “I just want to ask you something," He speaks softly, the words fighting to make their way out of his throat.

"Well," Barton says, stepping over the bodies of Loki and Amora. He stops next to Phil and raises an eyebrow, biting at a barely hidden grin. "I can't say I'm surprised," he growls, lifting a hand to ghost over Phil's cheek.

"It's strange, to say the least, being in a human. So many little needs, itches wanting to be scratched, and all types of hunger…there’s so much," he straightens Phil's tie, " _want_." His breath curls into Phil's mouth, but he doesn't move, not an inch, even when Barton brushes off Phil’s collar and twirls the scepter in his hand off to the side. The memories of it driving into his heart flash before Phil’s eyes.

 "Go ahead," Barton murmurs in his ear, " _shoot_."

"Will you spare him?" Phil asks softly.

"What?" Barton asks. "Didn't catch that." The scepter stops spinning.

"Will you spare him?" he asks, loudly, and Barton's grin reveals his wide eyes, flickering with the bright blue of the tesseract, crackling like lightning. Phil looks into them hard, looking for something, anything…

"No," Barton answers lazily.

Phil presses the button on the knockout device and holds his breath.

Nothing happens.

Barton starts laughing. "Really?" he snorts, plucking Stark's device from Phil’s hand and reaching forward to pull the plugs out of Coulson’s ears. "You thought I wouldn't notice? With these eyes?" He taps the side of his head. "Hearing aids."

"I know," Phil says, and drives the scepter through Barton's chest.

He lets it fall properly into his hand as Barton stumbles back in shock, gasping and breathing hard.

"You – you've killed him," he chokes as the blue fades from Barton’s eyes, and lets out a shallow laugh. "I'm gone."

“Come on, Thor,” Phil whispers, glancing upwards, as though Thor is in the above. Phil holds up the scepter just in time for him to watch its blue light flicker and fade. The tesseract has been destroyed.

"I've killed _you_ ," Phil says with conviction.

Barton's eyes fade and roll up in his head. Phil catches him when he falls.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs as he cradles Barton's body with his head in one hand; blood stains his hands and his chest constricts. "God, I am…I am so sorry." He shakes a little until Barton's eyes open, the irises now a faded light blue.

"Coulson?" Barton mutters, confused for a moment, and then they open wider. "You did it, sir," he whispers, trying and failing to take a deep breath. "It's…she's gone."

"Thor did it," Phil says, "I just had good timing." Barton chuckles a little and lifts up a hand for a moment, then pulls it away. _What the hell,_ Phil thinks, and takes it in his own.

"Well…" Barton says. "Guess this is really it."

"The others will be here in a few minutes," Phil says. “You've been hurt before, they'll stitch you right up –"

"They won't make it in time," Barton says. "It's okay, sir, you got the bad guys. Mission accomplished."

"Mission _not_ accomplished, agent," he says sternly, "this is not acceptable, you're being insubordinate." Barton laughs and Phil bites back a traitorous smile.

"Didn't anyone tell you? I quit SHIELD,” Barton says.

"I’m out of it for a little while, and everyone gets delusions of grandeur," Phil says, quoting _Star Wars_ with the ghost of a smile on his face.

"I missed you," Barton says suddenly, "Uh, I didn't mean to say that –"

"It's okay, I know you don't mean it. You think you're dying, you–"

"Why the hell would you think that?" Barton says indignantly, and then breaks into a fit of coughing. Phil takes off his tie in a swift motion and uses it to wipe the blood off Clint’s lips. "Come on, sir, you know I…we were the best team, you know. We were awesome," he says hoarsely, "I wouldn't change a thing. Not for the world."

"So stubborn," Phil says, shaking his head, and smiles at Barton.

Barton smiles back, "You know me…"

His chest stops moving, his eyes glossy and empty, his mouth open and empty.

"No," Phil mutters, " _no_." He sets Barton down carefully, tilts his head back, and starts to perform CPR, mind racing as he counts out loudly in the empty warehouse.

_Breath, breath._

"Come on, Barton, you have never given up before, and you sure as hell aren't starting _now_ ," he growls.

_Breath, breath._

"You're the same man who demanded that we got an hour off course so we could see a giant ball of twine," Phil says. “You are not dying on me today."

_Breath, breath._

"Please," he says, voice broken and rough, "please, Clint. Oh god, please don’t die. Not today – not you."

_Breath, breath._

Someone tries to pull him off Barton, someone small and strong, and he lashes out, striking them away.

"Come on," Natasha says in his ear, grabbing his arms and holding them behind his back. "You can't do anything more here."

"But I –" he starts, and she embraces him, lets him bury his face in her shoulder as he tries to breathe through his weeping, the two of them kneeling on the ground.

"Shh," she says comfortingly, her hands on his shoulders. "It's all over now."

"Can we get a medical team over here?" Steve says somewhere a few feet away, voice commanding and sharp. " _Now._ And someone – someone get some containment for these two."

"Pepper and Darcy," Phil says suddenly, looking up from Natasha's shoulder as SHIELD agents rush in to arrest Amora and Skurge.

"They tracked down the signal in Darcy's chip. They were locked in some basement. Not harmed. Not even compromised, just confused. Bruce went," she says, and he nods once and falls back onto his heels.

“It couldn’t use them,” Phil says faintly. “Thank god, it couldn’t use them.”

Natasha looks strangely at Phil.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

"I killed him," Phil says, and he's surprised at how his voice sounds in his own ears. "I – I had to," he stutters, but he can't continue, a dry sob working its way up in his throat.

"You did the right thing," Natasha says, but her voice shakes when she says it. He meets her eyes for a moment, but he can't stand it.

"There should have been another way," he says, fists curled up at his sides.

"There wasn't –"

"It was the tesseract," he explains, "It was controlling Amora and Loki, but it was in him. It chose…him. I stabbed him, I thought it would leave him – it did, and that's when Thor destroyed the tesseract. That's when," he presses a bloody hand to his mouth.

"Loki was here?" she asks, and he turns around. The floor is empty, with nothing but a bloodstain.

"He's gone," Phil says. “He must have woken up – but he could have killed me –"

"They're taking Clint in the ambulance, but they haven’t revived him," Steve says, reappearing next to them. "They're – _god_." He pulls off the cowl and kicks at the ground. "There's a car for us," he says, "to SHIELD."

Phil nods numbly and stands up automatically when Natasha gets to her feet.

"What do we do now?" he asks, hands falling numbly to his side. They don't have an answer for him.

*

There is no funeral. There is no wake. There is nothing, nothing except a pat on the shoulder and an "I'm sorry for your loss” from Fury. It's not enough, and Phil is expected back at his job on the Helicarrier just over a week later, after he's passed every medical and psychological exam they could think up.

It doesn't take as much wit and cunning as it should to steal the scepter as it should have, but Phil has a feeling that someone is looking out for him. It's not unusual to see him carrying classified equipment through the halls of the Helicarrier, so no one questions him as he carries the long box to the detention level.

Amora looks scared – her skin is pale and sickly, her long hair tangled and matted around her face. She's connected to a drip that is locked around her wrist to pump some kind of drug into her veins to stop her from teleporting from her cell. She lies sluggishly on the single bed inside her cell, nothing but clear glass between her and him.

"Enchantress," he says levelly, and sets the long box down. It unsnaps easily, revealing the scepter inside. Her bright green eyes go wide.

"You know not what you tamper with, mortal," she says, her voice muffled by the glass.

"I think I do," Phil says. "I think I know very well. Better than you, in fact." She blinks once and gets out of her bed to stand opposite him on the other side of the glass.

When he picks up the scepter, it begins to glow a sharp white color, barely discernible, nothing close to being bright enough to be the haunting blue of before.

"There's magic left in it yet," she breathes. "In _you_."

"Yes," he says simply. "But, how do I use it?"

Amora smiles, teeth wide and white. "You'll need more magic for that purpose," she says. “The scepter is a tool, not a power source. But, are you sure? It all comes with a price…"

"I know," Phil nods, and he does.

"Very well," she says, and steps back from the glass. He presses a few buttons, lets the computer scan his fingerprint and eye, and steps back as the glass cell wall slides back. But that's not all, because he takes a careful step towards Amora, spear in hand, and unlocks the drip from the manacle keeping it in place.

As the drug dissipates from her system, Amora stretches like a cat. Phil lunges forward and sets the point of the spear against her chest in warning. She looks down at him and laughs.

"This is a fair trade," she says, eyes beginning to sparkle with magic once more. "Loki would be quite pleased to see his weapon used in this way," she smiles.

"Why would he care?" Phil asks, narrowing his eyes. Amora reaches forward to take the staff of the scepter in her hand.

"He will be triumphant," she says as she lets her magic bleed into the scepter. "To accept your weakness, to become it…" She lets go of the scepter, which glows a light green now. "To let it become your strength." Amora begins to fade, her magic letting her teleport away, "You are more like him than you know."

Phil shivers when she disappears, leaving him alone with the scepter. He takes a deep breath and packages it away into the box before he leaves and continues through the Helicarrier towards the jets, just another agent in the crowded hallways.

It's one level down to the morgue, one level down through busy halls brimming with SHIELD agents. Phil walks calmly through the open door of the morgue, past where Natasha is having a conversation with the attendant to distract her.

 The room isn't even locked by the time he slips inside. There’s only a limited amount of cold storage here, only a small roomful of silver drawers.

Phil already knows the number and passcode. He types in the code with shaking fingers and pulls out the drawer.

Barton is icy pale and still in the drawer, covered in nothing but a sheet and some of the bloody clothes he’d been wearing when he died. He’d been frozen hastily at Phil’s command, before an autopsy or another higher ranking agent could show up.

Phil sets the box on the floor and unlocks it, pulling the scepter out carefully. It glows a lime in the box, but when Phil picks it up again, the color changes, morphing into a blinding white. Phil takes a deep breath, wraps his hands around the scepter, and brings it forward to touch Barton's wound.

"Heal him, please," he says, closes his eyes, and _wishes_.

It feels as though it's draining part of him, the scepter, like a wave crashing over him at the beach, soaking his legs and burying a part of him in the sand at his feet. It pulls at him, willing him to let go, to let himself float away. Phil holds on tightly, though, until he hears Barton gasping and coughing. He opens his eyes to see Barton sitting up in front of him.

"Clint," he breathes, voice shaking, and when Clint opens his eyes, they're glowing bright white.

"Coulson?" he says, and it sounds like he's coming out of a dream. "Is that–"

Coulson brings the scepter down over his leg with a sharp movement. It bends a little. When he brings the golden staff down one more time, it splinters until it's broken in half, the light gone from the scepter, and the glow gone from Barton's eyes.

"Cl – Barton?" he asks desperately, stepping forward. Clint sits up in the cryogenic drawer, sheet half draped over him, face dirty and closed and confused. "Are you–?"

"I’m," Barton starts, but his teeth chatter and he shakes, "I'm fucking freezing, oh my god," he laughs, shaking and pulling the sheet up around him. "And half naked. Is this heaven?" Phil allows himself a chuckle as he pulls off his jacket.

"Here," he says, and Clint smiles.

"And now you're undressing. Definitely heaven," he mutters, throwing the jacket over his shoulders. "Can I get a hand, here? I'm, uh, a little shaky," Clint murmurs, and Phil helps him out of the drawer carefully. "What the hell's wrong with you, Coulson?" Barton says as he stumbles, grabbing for Phil to steady him. "You're quiet. You don't –"

"I don't know what to say," Phil says, "I've been waiting so long for this…and I don't have a clue what to say." He covers his eyes with a hand and Clint laughs, prompting a laugh out of Phil as well. For some reason, they can’t stop laughing until Clint is in hysterics, shaking from the cold, and still clutching at Phil's shirt.

"Hydra crashed your funeral," Barton says suddenly, while Phil’s still chuckling, "and Captain America gave the eulogy, until Tony shoved him off the podium and went on about what a tightass you were." Phil looks up at the ceiling as a sudden wetness comes into his eyes.

“Of course he did,” Phil sighs. “They neglected to tell me about my funeral, you know.” Barton smiles at him, but it’s shaky.

"You didn't have to give me up," Clint says in a quiet voice. “In your letter…" Phil starts and tries to pull away, but Clint is shivering and holding onto him like a lifeline.

"I'm sorry about that," Phil begins, but Barton sighs loudly at his interruption. "I'm your handler, I can't–"

"Shut up, sir," he says, his voice beginning to clear, "you're kind of an idiot, you know."

"That's no way to talk to your superior, Agent Barton," he shoots back, and Clint smiles like he's just told the funniest joke in the world.

"Every time I go to kiss you, you go and say something that demands a snarky reply," Clint says suddenly, frowning, "It's very distracting."

Phil doesn’t know what to say to that.

Laughing, Clint grabs Phil's tie and pulls him over to kiss him gently, eyes closed and mouth open, and Phil sighs and pulls him closer. Clint steps back after a moment and looks sheepish until Phil covers his disbelieving laugh with a hand.

"I missed you," Clint says, clutching at Phil’s shirt so tightly that he’s making wrinkles in the starched white cotton, "so much, sir."

"I missed you, too," Phil admits, "god, I missed you. No more dying."

"You can talk," Clint smirks, and Phil pulls him in for another kiss.

That's how Natasha, Bruce, Tony, and Steve find them, kissing in the middle of the morgue; Clint half clothed and bundled in a sheet and Phil's jacket, Phil in his shirtsleeves with his arms around Clint's waist.

Natasha bursts forward to tackle Clint in a hug.

“Idiot,” she yells into his shoulder. “You’re both idiots." Clint laughs into her hair.

Bruce steps forward with a rare, awkward half-hug that takes Clint by surprise, and even Steve claps him on the shoulder a few times. Tony stays a step away from it for a long few moments before turning to Phil.

"You're right," he says quietly, "it's not easy. Nothing is."

Before Phil can say anything back, he’s interrupted.

"I was told that the man who let a certain prisoner escape could be found here," Nick Fury says, appearing in the doorway of the morgue. They all turn to see Fury standing with his arms crossed, glaring with his single eye. "I hope you know the penalty for treasonous agents," he says sternly. Clint's grip on Phil's shirt tightens defensively.

"Yeah, if he didn't have diplomatic immunity or whatever that shit is called," Tony says suddenly, stepping forward.

"I'm sorry sir, but the man you're talking about is an Avenger," Steve says suddenly, stepping up to Tony's side.

"I submitted his resignation just an hour ago," Natasha adds with a mischievous smile.

They look to Bruce when he steps forward, but he just crosses his arms and glares. It's enough.

"Agent Coulson is not a part of the Avengers Initiative and does not retain those rights," Fury says, crossing his arms and narrowing his eye at them all. Phil knows it's all an act.

"Sir," he starts, but Clint stops him.

"Yeah, he is," he says suddenly. "He's my sidekick. He holds my arrows for me."

Fury can barely hide his laugh, and the others don't even try.

"I think my skill set is a bit more complex than that, Clint," Phil says softly as the others follow Fury out of the room, talking loudly about some celebration at Stark Tower – Avengers Tower – that will probably end horribly.

"Is it, sir?" Clint says, and he pulls him down for one last kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> The lyrics of "Heroes" belong to David Bowie. It's a good song, check it out if you aren't familiar with it.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I worked really hard on this fic (and possibly cried in public writing the last scenes). Constructive criticism is much appreciated.


End file.
